Lonely World
by Charlie-Guevara
Summary: After Voldemort wins the Battle of Hogwarts, the last members of the Order go into hiding. Assuming that Harry is dead (he never returned from his meeting with Voldemort in the forest) Ron and Hermione try to live on and continue the war to honour his sacrifice. When Harry is found, Hermione discovers that one girl cares for him even more than herself or Ron. Harry/Fleur.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

**Bit of an experiment, let's see how it works out! This is set in an alternate universe where Voldemort won the war, forcing all of the Order of the Phoenix to go into hiding.**

**Hermione's POV**

Until recently, losing hadn't an experience that I was totally familiar with. My entire life had been a story of distinctions in exams, consistently beating the Slytherins and completing daring adventures with Harry and Ron. After all of the fights and adventures that we, as a trio, had come out on top in, being part of the losing side was a strange and wholly unpleasant situation. So many had fought to restore good to our world, so many had died and in the end it had been all for nothing. Voldemort had beaten us at the final battle, Harry had given in and sacrificed himself and darkness had descended over the wizarding world like an all-concealing curtain; nobody could be trusted in the streets any more. Not a day had passed where I hadn't felt an overpowering melancholy, a crippling anguish as I remembered the deaths of Harry, Remus, Tonks, Fred, and more... so many more. The only thing that kept me going was the wish that I knew that the 'Chosen One' had needed me to fulfil so that his and all of the other sacrifices had not been in vain; he had given himself up so that there would be one fewer horcrux to bind the despicable Dark Lord to this planet, and his plea had been that I would do everything I could to ensure that his reign would be short. That was exactly what I planned to do – Harry, and all of the others who had been murdered, deserved that much at least.

Staying at Shell Cottage almost made me feel guilty: whilst our world was at war, Ron and I had the luxury of living in a cosy cottage on a beautiful and scenic seafront. It seemed more like a holiday location than a hideout. Of course, the relatively few remaining members of the defiant Order had been scattered around other safe houses like the cottage: Grimmauld Place, the Burrow, the house of Tonks' parents. The Burrow had reminded us too much of Fred and Grimmauld Place too much of Harry, and the sympathetic organisers of the rehousing operation had seen this, hence our placement at the lovely cottage. It really was a soothing and silent environment. In the morning, if you were up early enough, you could watch the blinding sun emerge, rising like a great yellow balloon on the distant horizon. The new day unfolding, gentle waves would lap, tentatively at first but growing in confidence, against the shore and a shoal of crowded fish would dart to and fro. Seagulls often swept down majestically from the sky, determined to catch their unsuspecting prey. The sand of the beach seemed never ending, the golden grains stretching out as far as the eye could see.

For such a lovely beach, it was eerily quiet whether because of the magical enchantments circling the house or just a lack of interest I did not know. It seemed, to me, like the kind of place that a psychiatrist would try to make their patients think of to cool and relieve their emotions.

Often, as the day grew old, I would sit on the calmly swinging bench installed outside the cottage. I'd found that it was the best place to admire the view, and therefore the easiest environment for me to think in. Inevitably, my thoughts always ended up concentrated on the one person who I missed most of all. Sadly, even Bill and Fleur's cottage reminded me of him somewhat as my memory flicked back to a few months ago, back when we'd taken refuge there after the horrors of Malfoy Manor. He'd always been making poor excuses to take walks on the cliff side, but watching him from the window of the room in which I'd been recuperating it was obvious that he just liked to be alone. The cold, salty wind on his face, blowing that untameable hair around like the world's most powerful hair-dryer, it had been clear to me that he'd been thinking about his impending doom. I sometimes wondered whether it had been there that he'd made the decision that he would, inevitably, have to hand himself over the Voldemort eventually. It was my greatest regret that I had let his gloom consume him.

Ron was a great help, his much-appreciated attempts to cheer everyone up only making me like him more. Maybe the crazy, spur of the moment relationship that we had going on could eventually develop into more, I occasionally wondered. Of course, part of me knew that it should have been me comforting him. He'd lost more than I had, two of his own _brothers (_if only one by blood) having been taken by the war. Swinging slowly on the bench, I resolved that I would try to help him more in the future.

As if on cue, I heard his gruffly friendly voice behind me. "Thought I'd find you here."

I turned, accepting a kiss that he planted on my cheek. "It's not as if I'm ever anywhere else."

"Yeah." He agreed, perhaps having nothing better to say, "You should come inside, 'Mione. This cold will have you bedridden if you're not careful."

I replied with a compassionate smile, grateful for his concern, "I'll be okay, Ron. I just need to think for a while."

"He wouldn't have wanted you to be like this, 'Mione." He told me quietly, instantly knowing the subject of my thoughts. "He gave himself up in an attempt to make a better world, and we're wasting that opportunity. You've _got to _look at it in that way, 'Mione, or your sadness will take over. Why do you think that I'm not still weeping about him and Fred?"

His fingers, entwined with my own, grasped a little tighter reassuringly and I continued to smile at him. "I didn't know that your brain was capable of such depth, Ronald."

"I'm smarter than I look." He puffed out his chest proudly, a trademark Weasley grin breaking out over his cheeky face.

Pretending to ponder over what he'd said, I came to a jokey conclusion. "Just about, I suppose."

Although he hadn't managed to cheer me up exactly, I was grateful for both the effort that he was expending in trying to make me feel better and the fact that he'd briefly taken my mind from the late, great Harry Potter. Pretending to be happy for his sake, I decided to follow him indoors to one of Fleur's delicious French meals; probably bouillabaisse, judging by the delicious fishy smell which wafted from the kitchen's open window through the evening air. Life, I figured, could well have been worse.

**Harry's POV**

"Eat." Came the hostile bark of whichever of Voldemort's servants had been put on dinner duty, followed by the familiar scraping of the metal plate sliding over the cold, stone floor. The room/prison cell pitch black as always, I grasped around from where the sound had come from until I felt the cool plate of food (if what I was being forced to eat could be classified as this) against my hand. I picked it up and returned to my seat, the only piece of furniture in the room, preparing my taste buds for another invasion of their rights. I wondered what feast they had cooked up for me that night; a pork and apple stew to rival Molly Weasley's, perhaps, or maybe an entire roast boar glazed in a honey coating, served alongside various portions of chips and other fine side dishes? Nope. With a humorously disappointed laugh, as if I'd expected any different, as per usual I found a piece of bread and butter (at least I assumed that it was butter), served very elegantly alongside a small cup of doubtlessly dirty water. Voldemort's cook, probably a troll, obviously had very little imagination. Nevertheless, I wolfed the food and drink down, just grateful for something to even partially fill my empty, aching stomach. Crunchy bread and water were the only tastes that I could even remember any more, the fact that I was served this exact same meal for each of the three meals of the day making a lasting impression on my taste buds.

Attempts at hunger strikes, escapes and suicides had long since past. Refusing my food only made _them _force it into me unceremoniously; all escape attempts had resulted in an extended meeting with the cruciatus curse, and the only way that suicide would be possible would be by bashing my head repeatedly against the wall. My body just wouldn't let me do myself that much harm, I just force couldn't myself into accepting that much pain. So there I was, Voldemort's prisoner; humiliated, hungry and beaten. My brave act of sacrifice having failed as the 'Dark Lord' had discovered that whilst I lived, he would never die. The irony was not lost on me that I, his greatest enemy, was also his greatest weapon. As I greedily rammed the 'delicious' meal down my throat, I desperately hoped that somewhere my friends were fairing better than me.

**Hermione's POV**

Dinner at Shell Cottage was always a quiet affair, with the responsibility of finding something to talk about usually landing on either Ron or Bill. Fleur and I kept quiet most of the time, and I guessed that something was bothering her as much as things were bothering me. When I'd first met her, she'd reeked of arrogance and impatience, her swollen ego big enough to suffocate others in the room. And while every year she had become more friendly, perhaps under Bill's influence, her expression had recently been meek and her character quieter than ever. I suspected, judging by the lack of eye contact between her and her husband, that they were fighting. However, it was none of my business and I figured that it would not be good form to betray their hospitality by prying around in their personal affairs.

"Thanks very much for the bouillabaisse, Fleur." I thanked her as I did every night. "This must have taken you ages to cook up."

She seemed to shake herself out of whichever dream land she'd been in, a feeling that I understood very well, and smiled weakly at me. "Thank you, 'Ermione. It deed take a leetle longer than I had expecteed but I do not mind, it is nice to be, uh..." she tried to think of the correct word in English "occupied."

The quarter-veela's English had improved mightily since my fourth year, her accent now only causing her to struggle with the pronunciations of the letters h and I. She had become much more tolerable since then, as well, or maybe I just felt some kind of bond between us as we tried to struggle through these desperate times together. Ron would still stare lustfully at her every so often, desire clear in his eyes as he was enveloped by her allure, but had been doing it much less frequently as he tried to avoid the wrath of both myself and Bill.

We tucked into the well prepared meal, enjoying the full and soft taste of the various types of fish, complemented cleverly by the strong soup in our bowls. I loved Fleur's French cooking, I really did, but next to me I could often see Ron having to put on a fake smile of appreciation; he was more attracted to traditional British cuisine, and clearly thought that the food he was having to eat was far inferior to the kind of stuff that his mother had used to whip up every night. Still, I was grateful that he kept his mouth shut and pretended to enjoy the meals; it was definitely a sign of how he had matured, the old Ron probably would have spat it out and accused Fleur of trying to poison him.

"I think that I'm going to go and see mum on Saturday," Ron finally broke the rather awkward silence that everybody had grown used to since we'd arrived. "You know how she worries, and I think that George could still do with some company."

Bill nodded his head in agreement, "I suppose that I should go too, apparently he is still taking it pretty badly."

At that, the conversation drew to an abrupt halt as memories flocked back into everybody's minds about the Battle of Hogwarts, something that I for one still had horrible nightmares about. I'd found that this happened on most nights when we all convened to eat: someone would begin to talk, trying to make conversation, but it would inevitably lead to something that reminded us about the war, thus effectively ending any talking for the rest of the meal.

"I theenk that I weel stay here this time." Fleur surprised everyone by opening her mouth. I could see why she didn't want to go on the visit; her relationship with Mrs Weasley had always been a little bit awkward, and she really did have a pretty profound hatred of the Celestina Warback music that would doubtlessly be reverberating loudly around the Burrow.

Bill nodded, knowing of the stiffness between his wife and his mother. "That's okay, we probably won't be there for very long any way. You know, just need to show our faces every so often."

I wondered where this left me; although I had always felt a little intruding myself at the Weasley gatherings, even just a few hours alone with the French witch didn't seem particularly preferable. As far as I knew, we shared absolutely no mutual interests: she was the fashion obsessive and I was the bookworm.

"What about you, 'Mione?" Ron thrust the question on me, his eyes hopeful that I would attend.

I replied with an unsure shrug of my shoulders, "I'll think about it."

**Harry's POV**

In the dark solitude of my cell, there really was nothing to suggest what time of the day it was. They hadn't seen fit to adorn my underground room with windows, meaning that it was completely pitch black no matter the hour. It didn't really matter anyway, I knew, seeing as I so rarely slept anyway. Recently, however, I'd begun to get visits after my last meal of the day; not friendly get togethers, more along the lines of having torture sessions with Voldemort. That night was no different, and the familiar sense of absolute, pure dread came over me as the sound of the key scraping against the lock came from across the room. The door squeaked open and I hid my fear, knowing that it would only make him stronger.

"Good evening, Harry." He leered in a mock friendly voice, as if speaking to a dear personal friend.

I didn't reply, no witty retort forming in my tired, flagging brain. My body prepared itself for another attack, perhaps the classic old cruciatus curse.

"How rude," he tutted, now as if speaking to a naughty child. "What shall it be tonight, Harry?"

I glared loathsomely at the monstrosity, "I don't know, double chocolate rations and a film before bed?"

He laughed humourlessly, the narrow slits that he called eyes boring into me. "Cheeky, Harry, cheeky."

Before I could react, not that there was anything that I could have done, his wand slashed rapidly through the air and I felt a sharp pain at my stomach. Blood soaked through the thin and old t-shirt that I'd been wearing since my capture, pouring from the gash that his cutting curse had created. Defiantly trying to act as if were merely a mild inconvenience to have such a deep, painful wound, I raised my eyebrows at him mockingly. "That.." I let out a quiet, effect ruining gasp, "...all you got?"

My hope was, and had been since my arrival, that I could jeer at him until his annoyance influenced his actions and he decided to kill me, thus ending my long sufferings and destroying the last horcrux which bound him to the earth. Alas, however, his temperament had always remained calm, and each of the wounds that he inflicted on me would seal up overnight, leaving me strong enough for more 'fun' the next night.

"You are brave, I have always known this." Voldemort nodded, but somehow I didn't feel that he meant it as a complement. "But you Gryffindors seem to think it an honour to have courage. I have always felt that to call someone brave is by far the _kindest _way of calling them stupid."

Wondering if that was his idea of a joke, I spat on the ground in front of him. "You would think that, you were a _Slytherin, _the most detested of all of the houses."

At the insult to his house, his eyes seemed to become even darker and it seemed that the time for 'pleasant' chatting was over. He raised his wand and my screams filled the otherwise silent night sky.

**Back to Hermione's POV**

Finally settling down for the night, I curled up under a swathe of duvets and sheets, anything to protect me from the bitter cold on the outside of the cottage. A comforting fire blazed quietly and calmly in the corner, reminding me of the one which I had so enjoyed in the Gryffindor common room. Its occasional crackles only soothed me as I tried to pretend that I was back at Hogwarts, back there with Harry and Ron sitting around the warmth of the hearth.

I heard the noise of raised voices through the wall to my right, Bill and Fleur's master bedroom, muffled but definitely there. Never in my time at the cottage had I known the two to argue, although thinking about it I couldn't pinpoint any time when I'd seen either of them showing genuine affection for the other. They seemed to coexist more than anything else, Bill would go out and chop firewood, tend to the garden and make trips to the shops whilst Fleur would cook and tidy the house. On the only times that I'd seen them speak, the conversations had often just been about how badly the war effort was going. Hardly the language of romance.

I was Hermione Granger and everybody knew that I could be a bit nosey, although I preferred to think of it as being inquisitive, and they were proved correct yet again as I felt myself slip from the comfort of the bed and out onto the cool floor. Slipping a dressing gown over my thin night clothes, I daintily tiptoed across the floor and squeezed myself through the door, hoping to open it as little as possible. Back in Hogwarts, of course, we'd had the invisibility cloak to help us with our sneaking around but nobody knew where it was, the presumption being that Harry had taken it with him when he'd gone off to face Voldemort. I got closer to the door to their bedroom at the end of the corridor, well aware that if either of them came out then there would not be any workable excuse for being there. Still, my legs carried me forwards and I pressed my ear to the wooden door.

"Please, Beel. I cannot do zhis." I heard the voice of the French witch, noticing that her English accent appeared to get worse when she was nervous. My curiosity only peaked further as I wondered what was going on that they were having this argument.

Bill's voice came shortly after, "We're supposed to be married, Fleur. Why do you always refuse me?"

There was an unmistakeable sob, followed by more from Fleur. "You only like me for my looks, Beel. You are like ozzer men. I know zhis because I am veela, we can tell."

The soft thumps of footprints approached and I ran down the corridor as quickly as my legs would carry me whilst staying quiet, my heart beating like a drum. The door opened with a squeak just as I ghosted through my own doorway, desperately making my way to the bed and swathing myself with blankets once more. The footsteps passed my door and soon after I heard the faint noise of a door opening at the other end of the corridor, leading me to assume that one of them had decided to occupy the last spare bedroom rather than sleep with the other. My heart taking a long time to calm down, I willed myself to sleep having seen enough action for one night.

**Okay, that just about sets up the story. In other chapters, I will definitely be using other perspectives rather than just the ones of Harry and Hermione, it's just on this occasion I decided that it would be a good opportunity to show contrast effectively. You've got Hermione in relative comfort, living in a beautiful environment with lovely meals whereas Harry's in some horrible dungeon eating basically scraps. In case you didn't pick it up, you must know that:**

**Everyone thinks Harry to be dead**

**This is set only a matter of months after the Battle of Hogwarts, which in this story Voldemort won.**

**Thanks!**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Hmmm, a nice response to the first chapter with fourteen reviews. Nice comments; as always lovely to hear from you and I'm glad that all of you seemed to have positive opinions on my work so far. I hope that you all got my replies, although of course I couldn't send one if you reviewed but are not a member, and that they answered some of the things that you may have talked about. I'll stop talking now.**

**None of that disclaimer nonsense – we're on a fanfiction site for heaven's sake.**

**Hermione's POV**

"We have a secret spy in the enemy's ranks," Kingsley told the assembled group triumphantly, causing a murmur of joy ripple around; good news had been scarce recently.

Just about the whole of the surviving Order was crammed into the kitchen of the Weasley household, Kingsley having called a meeting to share the good news. Much to Ron and Bill's delight, of course, this had been scheduled on the same Saturday that they had planned to visit their mother. However much they loved Molly, I knew that they had come to dread their forced reunions, the over-protective Mrs Weasley causing them no small deal of annoyance with the countless hugs that she felt the need to smother them with and the constant flow of questions checking that they were okay, or if they needed anything. This meeting had helped them to kill two birds with one stone.

Although our ranks were somewhat smaller these days, although there had been plans to offer membership to those who had fought bravely in the Battle of Hogwarts, there were still a number of familiar faces which I hadn't seen in a while: the whole Weasley family, Kingsley, Dedalus Diggle

and Professor McGonagall had all turned up, but it wasn't lost on any of us that we desperately needed some new members. Notably to me, however, Fleur had not come; Bill had assured us that she just had a mild case of the flu, and therefore had decided to stay in bed. I suspected that her reasons for not coming were more influenced by her nightly arguments with her husband; every time I'd tried to sleep, the same muffled shouting had come from the next room, followed by the softly thudding footsteps to the spare bedroom.

"Great!" Ron responded enthusiastically to Kinglsey's words, "Who is he?"

A plethora of groans sounded from just about everyone in the group, including myself, and more than a few eyes rolled at my boyfriend's lack of common sense. Personally, I was more offended at the fact that his natural reaction had been to assume that the spy had to be a male.

He looked around confusedly, wondered what had sparked the reaction. Professor McGonagall put him out of his misery with a healthy dose of her dry sarcasm, "I think, Mr Weasley, that letting that information would rather defeat the point of the spy being a _secret."_

"Oh, right." Ron smiled sheepishly, "Continue, anyway."

Kinglsey did so. "The identity of the spy cannot be released; only I know it, and unless I see reason to inform anyone else for any specific reason then it will stay that way. But, they have already started to report back to us about some things that we could find very useful."

The satisfying, exciting prospect of actual progress coursed like adrenaline through my veins; sitting tight and not doing anything to help the cause over the last few months had been difficult.

"We know the location of You-Know-Who's stronghold, where he is overseeing his army." The Head of the Order continued, "Our spy thinks that he is trying to gather enough power to continue his invasion into other countries, but does note that this is only speculation."

"Great! Let's go and get the bastard before he gets any stronger, then." George leered strangely maliciously, the prospect of revenge for his dear twin clearly on his mind. "Where is he?"

Kingsley half-smiled himself, knowing that he was being a tease. "I don't see any reason to divulge you in that information until we are ready to use it. Our forces are by no means strong enough to launch an attack on him yet, and until we do have the army that we would need, there is no sense in risking the fact that we know of his fortress being leaked."

"We can get the DA back together!" I suggested enthusiastically, "Most of them will want to help to defeat Vold... You-Know-Who."

Ron nodded his agreement, "Yeah; Neville, Luna, Dean, Seamus, the Patils and Lee would probably come."

"I'll ask Angelina if she'd like to join," George sighed glumly, disappointed at his chance for revenge being shot down; vengeance for Fred would have to wait until another day. Noticeably, the only tone that his voice had consistently taken since the Battle of Hogwarts had been that flat sigh, quite the contrast from the old days when it had been a shock to see him without a laugh or a cunning grin on his face. Although I'd never dampen Ron's spirits by saying so, I wasn't sure that he would ever recover from the loss of his twin. Angelina, his loving girlfriend, would hopefully help him through because I secretly feared a day when the surviving Weasley twin would be so desperate to see Fred that he would willingly leave the land of the living so that they could play pranks together again.

"That would be a good start." Kingsley nodded approvingly, the satisfaction of a plan beginning to finally come together clear as crystal on his weathered face. "Has anybody got anything else to say, or can we conclude this meeting?"

Ginny, who had stayed uncharacteristically quiet throughout the meeting, spoke up. "Yes; let's do this for Harry, Fred, and for everyone else who died to further our cause."

A reflecting silence came briefly over the room, some people perhaps surprised by the profundity of her statement. Looking at her, I could see that the pain of her brother and Harry's death still laid heavy on her mind; something told me that her seemingly eternal infatuation with the boy who lived had not wavered since his passing.

"Hear hear." George agreed approvingly, trying to break the deep melancholy which had descended over the room. A few other murmurs of agreement sounded from around the place, but most of the members had already begun to file out. Mrs Weasley called for Ron and Bill to go and catch up with her, drawing them both into lung crushing hugs, and I figured that it was time for me to get back to the cottage.

Communicating with our eyes, I sent my boyfriend a look which told him (I hoped) that I didn't want to stick around; he presumably understood me because a nod came in reply. Muttering a few goodbyes to those who were still around, I walked from the house and the gut-wrenching vertigo sensation of apparition soon followed.

**Harry's POV**

Finally, I gave in. My hand slipped into the left pocket of my worn out jeans and fingered the small, black stone that resided there. So many times I'd told myself that I should throw it away, that communicating with the dead was not right, yet the unbearable feeling of loneliness overpowered my weakening vow. Removing it delicately from my pocket, I knew that if my calculations were correct then I wouldn't be served another meal for a while yet, meaning that nobody would find me using the stone.

Turning the stone thrice over in my hand, I concentrated solely on the memory of my scraggly godfather; he may not have been family by blood, but I'd felt him to be my closest relation ever since around my fourth year. I opened my eyes, and there he was. Shimmering palely in the darkness, I could make out the features of my father figure. Death had seemingly treated him well; the hair that I had only ever known to be untameable, with a perpetually dirty look, was styled casually, messy but not tidy, shiny but not glossy. His face had lost the wrinkles that had bothered him despite his age of merely thirty six at the time of his murder, and it no longer had an unhinged look about it. In all, I thought him to look much more the carelessly handsome figure that he had been rumoured to be in his younger years.

A great smile broke over my face, uncomfortably stretching the muscles which hadn't been used for so long. "Sirius! You're looking great!"

He returned my grin with an uneasy one of his own as if he didn't quite approve of the living communicating with the dead; nevertheless, though, he seemed pleased to see me. "Death isn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be; I can't say how happy I was to see your father and mother again, and Remus tragically joined us as well. The Marauders, minus Pettigrew of course, are back together!"

"And causing havoc, I bet." I laughed happily, a sound that I had missed more than I would have been able to imagine. "On a serious note though, I do think that you should make up with Snape, he's do-"

Sirius cut across me. "Already have done; we're obviously more mature than you think. I think that he was happy to see Lily again, and James tolerates him for her sake, maybe a little because of everything that he's done for you. Merlin, I don't like to say it, but we really do owe him one."

Enjoying the comical grudging complement to his greatest enemy, I continued. "Yeah, he was a brave man."

We shared reflecting nods for the potions master who had previously been my least favourite person on the planet, even trumping Voldemort at some points, but a troubled look came over my godfather's face and words that he obviously desperately didn't know how to say what burst unceremoniously from his mouth. "Harry, I just want you to know how sorry we all are that you're having to go through all of this," he gestured around the rancid smelling room, "you deserve so much better than this."

I sighed; this hadn't been what I'd wanted to talk about. "Not much that we can do about that, though."

"Don't look at it in that way," the shimmering figure of Sirius pleaded with me. "Things can only get better, right?"

I laughed bitterly. "That's one way of looking at it. At least I've got you guys to talk to now, Merlin it's been so lonely."

"You're not going to like this, Harry." Sirius said slowly, as if deliberating over whether he should have been telling me what he was about to say. "But unfortunately, I don't think that you should contact us as regularly as you'd like to. The living are not supposed to be in contact with the dead, that has always been the way of things; the history of the Resurrection Stone has not been a pretty one. I think that you should use it just once more with everyone else who wants to speak to you. Your parents are just dying to talk, and I know that Remus would love to as well."

A sinking feeling descended over my torso, as if I'd been punched in the stomach. How fate was cruel, in that as soon as my hopes had shot up they'd promptly been shot down again. "So, when you say that I won't be able to contact you regularly, what you really mean is that after the next time, I can never contact you again?"

He replied apologetically, "I'm sorry, Harry. We all want to speak to you, but we fear that doing so too much would only tempt you into joining us. At some point, we'll all be reunited. I know what it's like to be a prisoner, to desperately desire some company, but sometimes the hard thing and the right thing are the same."

I laughed weakly, deciding not to retort about the fact that it was hardly as if I had a life ahead of me anyway. "When did you become a philosopher?"

He puffed his chest out, perhaps relieved that I had seemingly taken the grim forecast well. "I've always considered myself to be a great thinker, but I suppose that death has only made me even more profound."

We shared a short laugh before I decided to air the question that had been bugging me (amongst others... so many others) since we'd started talking. "How are my friends?"

**Fleur's POV**

Freedom. Solitude. Relaxation. The unfamiliar feelings had settled within me within seconds of the others leaving; yes, maybe I would only be able to enjoy them for a few hours but still, when you had a life like mine, any of these moments were cherished like gold. It would, of course, be unreasonable for me to suggest that I had a bad, uncomfortable life. On the contrary, I could live well in comparison to everyone else in the war climate; my house was calm and on a beautiful seafront, we had every single protection charm in the book to keep us safe from attacks from enemy forces, and the people who I lived with were generally friendly and nice.

But, something was missing. Over the last few weeks I'd started to feel the odd sensation of having a gaping hole in my heart, and I'd realised that I didn't love Bill like I'd persuaded myself. As a Veela, I was very emotive; love was stronger in me than in someone like Hermione, and we weren't supposed to live without it. Doing so was something that we felt very unnatural, it made us feel empty, and every day seemed tenser than the , I think, knew in his heart that I had no deep feelings for him and I can't stress how sorry I was for that; it had probably been my allure that had lead him into this marriage, and therefore it was thanks to me that he was wedded unhappily despite the fact that he was a funny, friendly, handsome and genuinely nice young man. My conflict of emotions was getting ever more difficult to deal with, hence my relief at finally having some alone time where I could do what I wanted, not have to put on the show of being an adoring wife to a happy husband.

So, that day I decided to just try to enjoy myself. First of all, I flu-called my parents and told them how things were going, although deliberately missing out any details about the unhappiness of my marriage, and they talked about the political climate in France. As usual, they offered to move me and my husband to safety in my home country, probably knowing by now that we weren't going to accept; long ago I had decided that even though this war was not happening in my own country, it was still my war to fight and I could not just run away from it. Still, it was nice to have the offer of refuge for if things got even worse.

Then, I indulged myself my reading a little bit of an English modern classic called _Birdsong, _a story about how love endures through war and betrayal. Reading books in English was something that I enjoyed doing because it improved my knowledge of the language, and I particularly loved the ones about romance; they always made me feel special inside because of my Veela heritage, perhaps even a little hopeful that I would experience such eternal love as the books always seemed to portray. I had long since come to the conclusion, however, that such love only existed in literature. The world was not a good enough a place for people to feel so unquestionably devoted to others that they would lay down their lives, their money, their possessions for others.

When I could finally put the book down, I dressed up warmly for a walk along the cliff front. Scarves, jumpers, gloves: all were thrown on hastily in preparation for the bite of the pre-Winter cold and the icy wind that would slap against my face maliciously.

It was as I was strolling, happily taking in the unparalleled calmness of soft waves breaking on the shore, that a small flash of light appeared on the doorstep, the clever witch who lived with me following soon after with a crack loud enough that I could faintly hear it from where I was standing. Hermione, I knew, was a very powerful witch; she had that rare blend of great intelligence and fierce loyalty mixed with bravery. In fact, there were countless positive attributes which she could lay claim to, but I had never quite been able to work her out. The muggle-born witch was obviously very proud yet she made no effort to maintain a good or tidy appearance, allowing her bushy hair to stay untamed and messy. I'd heard that she was incredibly forward thinking, apparently unable to do anything without planning a billion steps ahead, but since the Battle of Hogwarts her thoughts seemed perpetually dwelling on the past. I suspected that it was the death of a certain lightning bolt scarred wizard who was on her mind for most of this time. Everything I knew about her seemed to contradict what I'd been told about her; she was just impossible to read.

**Harry's POV**

Never had I been more grateful for a couple of hours of company; the last few months had been so lonely that I would have found a conversation with even Crabbe and Goyle intellectually stimulating. As far as I was concerned, the fact that it was my beloved godfather who I got the chance to talk to was only an added bonus.

We talked at length about anything and everything: the state of the war, any ways that I would have to escape from my confinement and even a little about death and the afterlife, although Sirius was reluctant to indulge me with too many details, reiterating his point about the living not knowing too much about the dead.

Time passed so quickly that it seemed like only minutes into our conversation when I heard the dreaded whisper of an unlocking charm being muttered, swiftly followed by the creaky opening of the door and the march of the black-robed Dark Lord into the putrid cell. His face was pale enough to dimly illuminate the blackness around him, his attire dark enough to blend in with it. The result was the sinister view of only being able to see his head, giving him the look of a monster even more hideous than the one I knew him to be. My fist clenched subtly around the stone, hiding it from my captor's view. Next to me, the projection of Sirius had stood up as if to throw a punch at the monster who stood in front of us. This was the creature who had killed James, Lily and countless other Order members; maybe even more importantly in my godfather's eyes, Voldemort was responsible for my state of living, a torturous and humiliating life arguably worse than death. Momentarily, I was worried that Voldemort would see my godfather and kill him again somehow, but my childish thoughts were soon wiped from my mind. Sirius was in my heart, and as such only I could see him.

"Shall we start from where we left off?" The murderer drawled, drawing his wand with an arrogant flick. I closed my eyes and hoped to die.

**Well, that's the second chapter done. I have quite a lot to say about it, so bear with me if you are interested.**

**I apologise profusely for taking so long to update, normally I'm a lot quicker than that. Unfortunately, a deadly mix of having both coursework AND writer's block really didn't help.**

**I don't think that this chapter was very well written and hopefully all of the others will be much better, so please don't give up on the story on the basis of this single update. They ****_will _****get better, I promise.**

**Although I started to set up a major offensive against Voldemort at the beginning of this chapter, I doubt that it'll be going ahead for a fair few chapters. Don't forget that many new fighters have to be gathered, plans need to be made, more has to be uncovered about the spy, and then it will go ahead. **

**I need to take things slowly, because the major point of the next few chapters has to be revealing the parallels in the lives of Fleur and Harry. They are supposed to both be feeling totally empty, Fleur because she is someone who (as a Veela) relies on love and affection, which she's not getting from Bill, and Harry needs his friends. Their similar feelings of emptiness will be important in their get together.**

**Finally, I'd just like to credit the book 'Birdsong' for the inspiration for this story. I think I mentioned it in the chapter as a book that Fleur was reading, and I don't know how many of you have read it, heard of it, or seen the BBC adaptation of it, but coincidentally one of the main antagonists is played as the same actor as the woman (Clemence Poesy) who played Fleur in the HP films. Birdsong is a similar story of how two passionate souls meet in an dispassionate world, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone; it is my favourite book, I think.**

**Anyway, that's it for today – I told you that I had a lot to say. Any reviews from registered members are guaranteed to be replied to via PM.**

**Charlie.**


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I got a lot of really helpful comments last time, so thanks for that! It really helps, and I hope that all of you got your replies. If you didn't then make sure that you tell me, I could have accidentally missed someone out. Onwards.

Fleur's POV

"There's going to be another Order meeting in a few days," Bill yawned, carelessly tossing some nightclothes on before sitting down on the side of the double bed. "Are you going to come to this one?"

Putting my worn book to one side, carefully placing a red bookmark in between the two pages that I was reading, I looked up at my husband. Although I'd spent the last few nights in the spare room, we'd made an agreement to prevent any arguments that night, hence the fact that I was lying between the silk sheets of the master bed rather than the tatty rugs of the mattress in the smallest room in the house.

I sighed, "I suppoze zhat I should. Ozzerwise people could start to get a leetle suspeecious."

Noticeably, a relieved expression broke over his face; somehow, I doubted that he wanted to have to continue explaining that I was suffering from a variety of made up ailments, and convincing Hermione and Ron that I was ill was especially difficult. It was difficult to get anything past the young witch.

"Good." He smiled at me friendlily, sending a pang of regret surging through me like a shot of adrenaline. Bill was such a nice guy, cheerful and good company, and thanks to me being unable to control my damned allure, he was forced to live his life with a woman who he didn't love.

Sending a plastic smile back in his direction, I picked my book up again and continued to read. Birdsong really was a mesmerising book; I could find myself sympathising with a character called Isabelle in the story, who was also a quiet woman in an unhappy marriage. The difference was, however, that Bill didn't beat me as Isabelle's did. Every so often, I would find a word that I didn't quite understand and I'd underline it, neatly jotting down some notes on the page margins so that my English would improve; it really was beginning to feel less like a second language now, if only I could crack the accent.

On the other side of the room, Bill gently fingered the long, angry scars which ran down the side of his face whilst examining them clinically in the mirror. Another twinge of unhappiness shot through me as I saw the disgust in his eyes. Bill was self-conscious about his wounds, I knew that, but something that he hid more was that he seemed to almost hate himself for bearing them, as if they made him represent everything that he hated. He needed somebody who loved him to comfort him about them, to tell him that they didn't make any difference to his appearance or his personality. While I could give him some reassurance, although I always felt that it sounded empty when I offered it to him, the fact that it didn't come from somebody who loved him made all of the difference.

Turning around, he caught my eyes as I stared at him and immediately my eyes lowered awkwardly back to the words on the page of my book. This was one of the ways that I had discovered that I didn't love him, that it had just been my immaturity and inexperience that had lead me to believe that a childhood romance was something more: I should not have felt so awkward with somebody who really had a place in my heart.

He interrupted my thoughts, "Shall I turn the lights off?"

Shaking my head as I returned to my senses, I nodded my confirmation and put Birdsong down to wait until the next morning. My hands reached to the small pin which kept all of my hair into a curly, wavy and short style above my neck. Removing it, my silvery hair cascaded gracefully down my shoulders like water dropping from a fall. Bill stared at me, mesmerised, his eyes glazing over with an animalistic desire as he saw the simple, but obviously beautiful, action. This was why I had trouble controlling my allure – it seemed to spread through just the simplest of actions.

"Beel," I warned gently, reminded him of his promise to not let the lust take over. His desire had been what had caused me to run away to the small bedroom for the last few nights; I just couldn't engage in any kind of sexual activity with him when I knew that the only thing fuelling it was his attraction to my looks. Using my allure in such a way felt too much like taking advantage of him.

Suddenly, the tautened skin on his face loosened and his eyes cooled a bit, as if a bucket of cold water had been chucked over his head. Feeling fairly sure that he had fought off his lust, I curled up under the blankets, both of us facing in opposite directions, and tried to let the gentle warmth send me into a blissful sleep.

Harry's POV

Pain spiked like tiny little needles under my skin, shooting up and sparking at sporadic intervals as I lay in the aftermath of a particularly malicious cruciatus curse (or five). It was, I knew, a sign of how powerful the unforgivable curse was that even thirty minutes after being inflicted with it, you still felt in abnormal pain. That session had been more painful than most, Voldemort having been in an apparently worse mood than usual for whatever reason. Even that sparked some hope in my resilient core, anything that angered him could only be good for the cause which I'd tried to sacrifice myself for.

Sirius had stayed with me for the entire time, a reassuring presence by my side as he watched on. Of course, there was nothing that he could do to stop my pain, nothing he could do to stop Voldemort's anger, nothing he could do to affect the Dark Lord in anyway, but just his being there made me feel inexplicably one hundred times stronger. Unlike other nights when I'd eventually broken down and screamed in pain, that night I managed to sit and take it all without a single peep.

When Voldemort had finally decided that enough was enough, he'd left me to lie in my own blood but frankly, I didn't care. The pain, the torture, the life that I was forced to live was secondary to the fact that I now had my godfather to talk to. Maybe, one day my torturer would lose control and do the thing that I found myself wishing for most: send me up to my godfather, my parents, Remus, Tonks, Dumbledore, Fred.

"Merlin, Harry, are you okay? What can I d-" Sirius began to cry, the frustration of being helpless as he watched a loved one suffer clear in his voice.

I stopped him. "Please, Sirius. Let's talk about anything, anything other than what you have just witnessed."

With a stiff, reluctant nod, he began to tell me about what it had been like seeing James and Lily again, the emotion clear in his voice as he described my parents joyfully. Once, many years ago when he was still alive, he'd told me that not a day had gone by in the fourteen years since my father's death that he had not missed James. I was happy for him that at least he'd managed to get his wish.

However, as his story went on, an apologetic expression began to form on his face and I knew that he had decided that he couldn't stay any longer without pushing the boundaries of life and death. Soon, I would be alone again.

Hermione's POV

Breakfast, for once, was not the quiet affair that everyone had come to expect. There was an unfamiliar buzz of excitement at the prospect of progress, the possibility of actually doing something to bring down the despised Dark Lord who ruled the country with an iron fist. I for one was especially happy; sitting around and doing nothing seemed to shame Harry's sacrifice. He did what he did so that we would have the opportunity to have a pop at bringing down Voldemort, so that was exactly what we were going to do.

Before the next planned Order meeting in a couple of days, Kinglsey had told us that we had to bring together as many potential new members to form an attacking force strong enough to for us to even contemplate invading Voldemort's stronghold. Bill was going to talk with the goblins to see if he could get any support at all, Ron was going to track down a few former DA members and I was going to find any remaining ones.

"Are you feeling any better, Fleur?" Ron asked, presenting us all with the rather unwelcome image on the bizarre mixture of cereal and toast that he had in his mouth for breakfast.

I elbowed him embarrassedly as Fleur answered confusedly, her eyebrows lowered. "What do you mean?"

It was Ron's turn to look confused. "You were ill, with the flu, remember? That's why you couldn't come to the Order meeting."

"Oh... oui." Fleur remembered her lie, perhaps a little bit surprised that Ron had actually bought the story. "I am feeling a leetle better, zhank you."

Anyone else but Ron would have seen through the lie there and then after such a blunder, Merlin most people would have figured it out as soon as the lie was told considering how blatantly false it was, but yet again my boyfriend managed to amaze me with his failure to comprehend such things. He was, of course, the only one who believed the lie at the table.

"What are you going to try to do to help, Fleur?" Ron asked, hastily changing the subject. I watched angrily, perhaps even jealously, as he made the mistake of looking at her as he spoke, inevitably getting lost in her deep eyes.

The quarter-veela awkwardly avoided the younger Weasley's desire, once again confused at what he had said. "Uh, excuse me but help what? Was zhis somezhing zhat you talked about in zhe Order meeteeing?"

Ron looked at Bill, scandalous. "Have you not told her, Bill? This is only the biggest news of the last few months!"

"Oh yeah, forgot." Bill replied quietly. I, of course, knew that he hadn't forgotten. The real reason why he hadn't told her was that they barely talked, and when they did it wasn't about anything important.

He launched unenthusiastically into the telling her about the spy, the possible dangers to other countries, the fact that Voldemort's stronghold had been located, the potential invasion, and the recruiting of new Order members.

"You mean zhat France iz in danger from 'im?" Fleur asked worriedly once Bill had finished, her thoughts immediately straying to her family. "I will 'ave to tell zhem straight away!" Her tone got more excited at a realisation, "Maybe, I could get papa to persuade the French Ministry to 'elp the battle in zhis country. You said zhat you need more members for zhe fight!"

She was right, of course, in that the prospect of having the entire French auror department on our side was an exciting prospect. Suddenly, if what she said was even possible, this fight was starting to seem almost feasible.

Ron echoed my thoughts. "We could actually win this! We could kill Voldemort, now that he doesn't have any more hor-"

I urgently elbowed him in the side again, hissing at him as he nearly gave away the secret that we had kept for so long. Nobody knew that Voldemort had ever had horcruxes, and now that they were all destroyed, I didn't see any reason for them to need to find this out.

"Any more what?" Bill lowered his eyebrows, immediately spotting that his younger brother had spilled a painfully kept secret. Ron looked at me questioningly, as if asking me if it was okay to tell his brother; after all, with Nagini's death at the Battle of Hogwarts, they had all been destroyed and surely it would do no harm for them to know?

With the tiniest movement, I shook my head. In my opinion, the very fact that Voldemort had even had horcruxes was unsettling and certainly not something that should have been spread around.

Obviously seeing right through our deceit, Bill continued to try to read us whilst Fleur sat absent mindedly in her chair, her thoughts obviously totally elsewhere; I suspected, with her family.

"Well." I tried to get away from the table before Bill unsettled me further. "We'd better get going, a lot of people to visit."

Excusing ourselves awkwardly, Bill's gaze never leaving us, we made to go our separate ways. Although Ron had wanted us to visit everyone together, I had reasoned that in order for us to talk to everyone we would have to split up. A day free from his copious ministrations, concern that reminded me of his mother sometimes, would be nice anyway.

Ron's POV

Immediately, I noticed a number of new additions to the Lovegood household since our last visit, which hadn't exactly ended particularly calmly. It seemed that Luna and her father had been able to move back and rebuild their house without too much fuss from Voldemort's forces, despite the fact that Xenophilius had been on the run previously.

The first thing I noticed: even more dirigible plums. Remembering some of the recipes which I had been unfortunately acquainted with at Luna's assistance, I wretched; I could still feel the unbearably weird taste of the plums on my tongue.

Near the village of Ottery St. Catchpole, the Lovegood house had previously been coloured a matt black and shaped like an irregular rook in chess, or a toadstool without its head. All sorts of bizarrely coloured plants had jutted from the walls. It looked to me, however, like the Lovegoods had decided to spruce it up a little bit. Perhaps in a relatively unsuccessful attempt to make the residence colourful and attractive, the mark two of the house had been changed to a dark grey instead. Although it looked slightly different, it was still the solitary home of two of the strangest people I'd ever met and safe to say, I wasn't happy to be there at all.

With a deep breath, my feelings about Luna totally opposite to those about her father, I sharply rapped on the eagle door knocker. A long wait ensued, leaving me in the company of a growing, unfortunately, dirigible plum bush; there was nothing that I wanted more than to see those sickening orange, radish-like 'vegetables' wiped from the face of the planet, ever more of a priority than Voldemort's downfall. The irregular sound of thumping footsteps came from behind the thick, silver nailed door and immediately I recognised them as the thumps of Luna's skipping. My expression of distaste at the plums quickly turned into one of happiness, the prospect of seeing my brilliant, although slightly strange, friend again very exciting.

The black door, thick enough that it could have been for a prison, squeaked open and from behind it popped the ever-cheerful half-smile of Luna Lovegood. Her pale skin was splattered with little goblets of paints of all colours; I suspected that she neither knew nor cared about this slightly odd appearance. As usual, she bore an absent expression which implied that she was always in at least five places at once, her over active imagination strong enough that she was never really totally in reality. Tied back into a scraggly ponytail was her blonde hair, a comical contrast the the complex and carefully styled forms which Fleur used in her hair.

"Hello, Ronald! Come in." She said simply, seemingly totally unsurprised by the fact that a friend who she hadn't seen in months had randomly turned up on her doorsteps.

Skipping ahead of me, Luna lead me through her house. The front door lead rather oddly straight into the kitchen without any of that hallway nonsense, a perfectly circular room, with a stove, multiple sinks for some reason, and cupboards curved to fit the walls. All of these items had been painted in bright primary colours with flowers, insects, and birds. Judging by the paint that was splattered over my friend's body, I guessed that she had taken part in the decorating process. The colours were overwhelming in such a small space and totally contrasting to the grim darkness of the outer walls, a decoration choice that I wasn't totally sure worked a charm.

Singing quietly, Luna took me up the iron-wrought spiral staircase which, if I remembered correctly and the arrangement hadn't been changed, would take us up the living room. This room was smaller than the kitchen, though more cluttered, and entirely round, and it appeared to serve as both a living room and a workplace for her dotty father. It seemed somewhat labyrinthine with piles of books and papers covering every surface. The ceiling was dotted with small, delicately made bronze creatures that could flap their wings, or snap their jaws, perhaps also created by Luna. It struck me that she really did have some artistic talent, something that was never awarded or recognised in a school run purely to teach magic like Hogwarts. In the corner of the room was Xenophilius' printing press, a new one, which printed out more copies of his magazine than he likely needed considering the Quibbler's scarce readership. In another corner, a stone bust of Rowena Ravenclaw stood proudly on displayer, wearing a familiar headdress. The entire house had collapsed, I mused, and that bloody bizarre headdress had survived.

Our journey ended as Luna finally lead me into her own room, which she had rebuilt to be exactly how it had been as before the house had been destroyed. It had the same sea blue carpet that made you feel like you were walking on water, the one single window which could see all over the lonely surrounding hills, and of course the beautifully decorated walls. Ever since I'd first seen the paintings of me, Harry, Neville, Hermione and Ginny linked in golden chains made up of the word 'friends' as her decoration, I'd realised just how cherished we were to her, and how strange a situation for her it must have been to actually find friends. Her oddities and strange habits only made us love her more where the exact same things turned others away, and I was glad that we had met her those many years ago on the carriage going into Hogwarts.

She sat down on her bed, patting beside her for me to take a seat as well. Doing so, I noticed that the picture of her hugging her mother was no longer on the bedside table. A pang of guilt immediately spread through me; presuming that the photo had been lost when the house had fallen, it was our fault that she'd lost the cherished picture.

"What are you doing here, Ron?" She asked dreamily, her eyes piercing mine unabashedly.

With anyone else, I might have found this blunt manner rude. Not Luna, though. "Couple of reasons. Firstly, I wanted to see how you are."

"I doubt that that was the real reason why you came, but I am fine anyhow. The wrackspurts haven't bothered me as much as they have done in the past, and I think that Daddy and I are close to finding a crumple-horned snorsnack."

Recognising this as the start of one of Luna's infamous tangents, I swept in to cut across her as politely as possible. "Where is your dad, anyway?"

"Tending to the dirigible plums, I think." My perfectly insane friend replied.

Judging by the fact that I hadn't seen Xenophilius on my way in, I guessed that he must have been round the back, opening up the rather scary idea that there were _more _dirigible plums behind the house.

I continued, "Anyway. I came to talk to you to ask if you'd like to join a secret group to bring down You-Know-Who."

"Like the DA?" Luna's face lit up, and I was reminded that she had never really come to terms with the fact that Dumbledore's Army had stopped meeting up after the dreadful fifth year.

Seeing her delight, I pressed my advantage. "Exactly. We're called the Order of the Phoenix, and we meet up at least once a week."

Hesitation clouded over Luna's face. "Wait, I heard that the Order of the Phoenix were part of the Rotfang Conspiracy-"

"Luna." I said bluntly, not even bothering to enquire how she knew anything about the top secret organisation. "The Order is not part of any Ratfog Conspiracy, it is a group of brave aurors and fighters who want to restore justice to our world. You're in or you're out."

The dottiest girl in all of England smiled from ear to ear. "I'm in."

**That's it for that chapter. I think most of it was good enough, and it had a good length considering that it only took a few days to complete. It was you reviewers, and you know who you are, who spurred me on and gave me the energy to release this chapter so soon, so give yourselves some hearty pats on the back.**

**I tried to do a few things with this chapter: I think that I kept paragraphs shorter because of a request for that to happen, I tried to continue exploring the characters, and I've kept things moving onwards so that everything doesn't just grind to a halt. Probably the chapter after the next we'll see the new Order meet, and from there on in we really get going because of the invasion that will have to occur.**

**I was really grateful for everyone who took the time to review, all I can do is thank you profusely and hope that you continue to do so for a hard working writer. Special thanks to Slytherin66, who sent me massive suggestions which must have taken a very long time and a great deal of effort to write.**

**See you next time!**

**Charlie.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**As ever, thanks to everyone who's reading this, and an extra special thanks to those of you who take the time to review. Words cannot express my gratitude. On with the big chapter four, where we begin to approach some sort of initiative to bring down Voldemort...**

**Hermione's POV**

Neville's room was a proud display of his finest memories, whilst also a perfect representation of his character, something that he probably hadn't intended to do. The smallest and easily most modest room of the Longbottom household, it was tucked away in the corner of the building, neighbouring the master bedroom which his parents had apparently used to occupy. It seemed that he and his grandmother had decided to leave it empty in their honour.

I couldn't help but smile at the messiness around me; clothes which probably went out of fashion before fashion was even invented were sprawled over the floor, the wardrobe's hopeful clothing hangers totally bare. On the wall hung a few colourful posters which seemed to stand out from the rest of the room, a shockingly bad clash. Decorating the windowsill were a few interesting plants which seemed to be cared for with meticulous attention; I knew that one of them was dittany, a plant which took a great deal of skill and precision to grow correctly, but a couple of the others stumped even me.

It was, however, the mantle piece over the fire at the end of the room that naturally commanded the most attention. Proving that he at least had some decorative skills, Neville and proudly mounted his golden DA coin so that it gleamed in the light and naturally drew eyes to it. He, like Luna, had always been particularly attached to Dumbledore's Army, and he had perhaps been the most bitterly disappointed when it had been discontinued in the sixth year. Next to the gleaming galleon lay some cherished photos, on one side a picture of the entire DA assembled and on the other, his parents smiling up at him.

As I said, the room perfectly represented my brave friend's character. Messiness and disorganisation, attempts but ultimate failures at trying to decorate the walls, his love of herbology and his sentimental feels about his parents and the group of friends that he had appreciated so much; all were on display.

"You like it?" Neville asked nervously, not knowing exactly what to think about my inquisitive examination of the room.

The black-haired wizard, the most unlikely of all heroes, was still a little shy and tentative by nature. Although his confidence and self-esteem had grown exponentially throughout the last years, deep down I still fondly saw him as the podgy boy who had lost his frog on the first day of Hogwarts, the most Hufflepuff-like of all Gryffindors who I had grown up knowing. War had forced him to change who he was, an alteration which actually eventually turned our for the best, but he had and never would change in my eyes.

I smiled at him fondly, "It's nice. Is that dittany that you're growing?"

"Yeah," he said more relaxedly, "I figured that with the ministry controlling all distribution of potions, it wouldn't help to have someone on our side growing our own dittany."

I raised my eyebrows at his rather uncharacteristic forethought. "That's clever, Neville. I take it that this means that you want to help?"

"Of course!" The clumsy boy replied, perhaps a little over enthusiastically, "We need to get them back for what happened to Harry."

At the mention of _his _name, immediately I felt my insides chill like water on a cold Winter's day, an icy hand grabbing my heart and smothering it. I closed my eyes, trying to stop the images from the last time that we'd seen each other from entering my frazzled head. He'd looked so... lost, empty, guilty. I had failed to restore his hope; it was my fault that he'd gone to Voldemort. Everything that I did, I did to try to keep my mind off any thoughts of my friend and yet, I had found that somehow everything seemed to remind me of him in one way or another.

Neville looked at me concernedly, his hand reaching out to softly grip my shoulder. "Are you okay, Hermione?"

_Great, _I thought bitterly, _A fumbling Neville trying to help me is all I need. _Immediately, though, I felt guilty for thinking it. He was just being a good friend, surely something that I needed.

"What's happened? Was it something that I said? ...Oh..." Neville blabbered out nervous words before finally realising his mistake. "Do you...uh...do you wanna talk about it?"

Calming myself down, I looked up into his wide eyes. They were so solicitous, the eyes of a caring man who was doing everything he could to understand, but not quite being able. Everything about Neville's face told you that he was a guy you could trust with all your heart, from the slightly chubby cheeks to the large teeth which could've really done with the attention of my parents, a loyal friend who would never let you down if he could help it.

"Yeah, Neville. I actually think that I do."

**Harry's POV**

Carefully, I slipped the small stone back into my pocket. Sirius had gone, telling me that he couldn't stay any longer without upsetting the laws of life and death. Part of me hated him for going, for leaving me again, but at the same time I knew that he regretted it as much as I did; the apologetic look on his face had said it all. If I knew Sirius at all, although it occurred to me that I didn't particularly, then I guessed that he would probably be suffering from this as much as me, stuck between the desire to give me the company that he knew I desperately needed and the fact that staying could drive me insane.

He was probably right, but that didn't stop me from hating that he'd made the decision that he had. As far as I was concerned, I was going to end up crazy at some point anyway. Why would it matter if that occurred because of either a lack of company or too much conversing with the dead? It was the same outcome.

Already, just a few minutes after he had gone, I was bored. Bored, bored, bored. It seemed that having company for a short while had made me forget that alone was how I lived, in an eternal solitude. It had been months since I'd seen anything over than the faintest of lights; the only things that had brightened the cell had been Voldemort's skin, as pale as bone, and the dimly flickering light of Sirius' projection. At the start of my confinement, I'd often exercised by running around the cell, doing press ups, sit ups and anything I could think of to keep myself fit. Since then, I'd barely moved from my seated position in the corner of the room. I wasn't sure whether I even could move any more.

At least, I knew, I could still talk to my parents at some point. Sirius had warned me that I could only really speak to them once without driving myself insane, so I had already decided to wait until I was at the peak of my despair. When the need for conversation would finally become to strong, I would take the stone from my pocket and use it once again. It was a grim thought that if I really was doomed to stay in my cell for the rest of my years, I would only have one single conversation in all of that time.

The familiar scraping of the key against the lock sounded; it was strange, it seemed too soon for Voldemort to be coming to enjoy his daily session with me. The door swung open, and in strode a recognisable man.

He was tall, probably towering a few inches over me, and slender, even unnaturally thin, with long fingers, each capped with a carefully manicured nail. His sleek hair was a mixture of bone white and blonde, only a shade more colourful than the paleness of the rest of his complexion. Narrow on his face were his cold grey eyes, under which dark shadows of fatigue loomed.

The man was dressed smartly in a purely dark suit, blending in with the blackness around me to an extent that it was barely visible. Shining brightly on his wrists were snake cuff links; this was a man who was proud of his Slytherin heritage. Disdainfully, his eyes travelled around the rancid room and it was clear that he would rather be anywhere than there. A wretch at the foul odour that I was forced to live in every single day soon followed, proving that he was a man used to the high life.

I knew exactly who he was. The single word was spat from my mouth as if I was uttering the name of a deadly disease. "Malfoy."

**Fleur's POV**

It was the same ritual every day. Around midday, I would sit on one of the antique sofa's that our living room had to offer, a book clutched lightly in my hands as I waited for the flames to turn emerald and for my mother's face to appear. This was how we kept in touch daily, and although my father could rarely make an appearance because of his work, occasionally I would get to talk to him.

The others were all out hunting for people to join our cause: Bill was meeting the goblins and Hermione and Ron had gone to meet their school friends. Alone in the house, I figured that this would be a good opportunity to discuss the doubts I was having about my marriage with Bill with my mother, although of course I would have to talk to her about Order business first.

Interrupting me from my thoughts, the fire roared and spat up emerald flames, signifying the start of the floo call. Carefully putting my book down onto the table, I rolled off the sofa to lie on my stomach in front of the fireplace. In amongst the flames, the image of my dear mother began to form and soon we were looking into each other's eyes.

"Maman! I exclaimed joyfully, wishing that I could give her a warm hug.

I received a motherly smile as she started to speak to me in French. "Hello, my dear. How are you?"

We exchanged the necessary pleasantries, each of us informing the other that we were doing fine, maybe telling a few stories about what had happened in the last week. Maman would tell me about how Papa and Gabrielle were, reassuring me that they were doing well as well. When all of these were said and done, I continued onto one of the things that I actually wanted to talk about.

"We received some fearful news recently, maman." I told her seriously, the smiles wiping off both of our faces as we got down to business. "I can't say it very clearly in case somebody we don't like is listening, but you all might be in more danger than you think. The, uh, problem that we have might affect you quite soon because it is getting worse. I hope that you know what I mean."

My mother, Apolline, nodded her understanding; she was a smart woman, and I doubted that my words hadn't been too cryptic. "I think so, yes. I take it that your information is reliable, that this isn't a guess?"

I shook my head. "We have somebody who knows a great, great deal about the problem."

Again, I just had to hope that my mother would read between the lines enough to understand that I was talking about a spy. It was very difficult to make myself clear enough that my mother understood, but also ambiguous enough that if a ministry official on Voldemort's side was listening in, they wouldn't know that we had a spy. You just couldn't be too careful; there we were talking in French in only one of the thousands of floo networks in the country, and we were scared that somebody was listening and understanding us.

"I will tell your father so that he can make sure that everyone knows about the problem." Maman told me. "Do you think that it might be helpful for us to help the problem where you are?"

The conversation was getting dangerous now; whilst anyone listening it might have just thought that we were referring to a problem such as a rusty gate, if they were able to read between the lines then they could inform Voldemort of the fact that an invasion against him was being planned. The problem was that this was the only way that I could communicate with anyone back in France. Apparating such a long distance always made me feel unwell, the floo network couldn't be trusted whilst under the control of the ministry and it was definitely too far to fly.

"That could be helpful, yes. There are not enough of us here to deal with a problem as big as this one; nobody knows how to deal this damned rusty gate." I told her, trying to imply to any listener that the problem was indeed a rusty gate. It didn't make much sense, but hopefully they wouldn't notice that.

"I will talk to your father about it." Mother replied with a small smile on her face, perhaps amused that we our euphemism for Voldemort was a 'rusty gate'. "It must be very difficult to live with the rusty gate, and we are very lucky to not have a rusty gate ourselves."

I let out a small laugh, delighted that my mother could manage to lighten up such an obviously dark and serious matter. It was just one of the reasons that I loved her with all of my heart, and that not a single day went by when I missed being cosy in one of her hugs.

"There is only one more thing that I want to talk about." I sighed, touching on the subject that I really didn't want to talk about, even with maman. "It's about Bill."

**Hermione's POV**

"I just can't work it out." I told Neville Longbottom, the most unlikely person to act of a psychiatrist, which was perhaps one of the reasons why I'd chosen him for the task. "Part of me is just so angry at him for giving up and leaving us when he we could have solved the problem that he had. At the same time, though, I blame myself for letting him go. I knew that he felt guilty about everyone who had died and I knew about the nature of his problem, so therefore it was obvious to me that he would do what he did. But I didn't stop him. I didn't stop him, Neville. What's worst of all is how we've disrespected his sacrifice, though. He died so that we could defeat You-Know-Who at last, so that we could live in a better world, but look at us all! The Order is useless, we've just been hiding away since the battle and letting You-Know-Who get on with everything. We didn't even find Harry's body, Neville! To think what horrors that Vold- You-Know-Who will have inflicted on it, I don't want to think about it."

"I wish that you'd let me know what Harry's 'problem' was, but I can tell you're not going to." Neville replied a little grumpily, annoyed that he'd been left out as if he wasn't trustworthy enough to know the information. "I don't really know, but I'd suggest that you just try to bring down You-Know-Who so that you can feel like you feel like you've honoured Harry, but that's just my opinion so it's probably stupid."

I could have told myself the same thing, but hearing it come from my friend's mouth seemed to make me feel a little better. Or maybe it was just the relief of getting it out.

"Thanks, Neville." I told him gratefully, placing my hand over his. "It was really nice of you to listen. I'm sorry that I can't tell you about what Harry was suffering from, it's just that it's not really my secret to give. Harry didn't want people to know so I'd feel guilty going against him, even if he is... you know."

The half frown which he was obviously trying to hide gave away that he wasn't exactly happy about my secretive nature, but perhaps knowing my stubbornness he decided to let me get away with it this once. He got up from where we sat on the bed, comically tripping over a stack of books on the floor and looking around embarrassedly, and went to gently run his fingers over his treasured DA galleon.

"We need to get the DA together again so that we can fight him." He said quietly, looking at the picture of the assembled group. A few of those members had died, and all of them needed to be avenged. Colin, Lavender and, of course, Harry.

Remembering the whole purpose of my visit, I spoke up. "I can help you with that. I came here today to invite you to join the Order of the Phoenix, which is a group dedicated to bringing down You-Know-Who, and obviously the invites will be extended to other members of the DA who we're sure that we can trust; Ron's talking to Luna as we speak."

"Count. Me. In."

**Harry's POV**

"I see that your intellect is as powerful as ever, Potter." Draco Malfoy sneered, quickly shutting the door behind him. "Of course it's me."

Momentarily, I considered heaving myself up and fighting him. How could he dare take pleasure from my condition when I had saved his life, risking my own in doing so, at the Battle of Hogwarts? My limbs whirred and creaked like a faulty machine at any attempt to mobile, however, and my valiant attempts were soon forgotten. My body was receiving no energy from the limited food that I ate, my muscles had wasted away into nothingness, I was even skinnier than I had been in my days with the Durselys. Of course I couldn't fight him.

"If you ask me, you've had this coming to you for a very long time." He continued, strolling around the room nonchalantly as he twirled his wand around in his fingers. "You could have avoided all of this if you'd just accepted my offer on the first day of Hogwarts. If you'd chosen to follow me rather than Weasel and the Mudblood, then you would be in a totally different situation right now. You'd be on the winning side, and you wouldn't have caused _all _of those people to die in the Battle of Hogwarts."

"Shut up." I whispered quietly, willing him to be quiet. A part of me knew that he was even just a little bit correct; the deaths of Remus, Tonks, Fred, Lavender and all of the others had been my fault.

He continued, "Exactly how many of your friends did die that night? I'd imagine that there were quite a few."

"SHUT UP!" I roared, unable to contain my anger nor my guilt. My hands reached up to cover my ears; this was a torture worse than any of the physical kind.

"I think I've struck a nerve!" He laughed, just loud enough that I could still hear him. "Either way, no more dallying. The Dark Lord has sent me here today to fill in for him; he's a little busy, you see. Probably hunting down your traitorous friends."

Strangely, I was glad that he was going to torture me. Whatever curses he would throw at me, whatever physical pain I would be forced to endure, nothing could be worse than the words that he had just made me listen to. As long as he was no longer speaking, I figured that I would be okay.

"This one's revenge for a few years ago. SECTUMSEMPRA!"

The incantation left his mouth with such biting malice that I swore it could've cut through steel, and the pain that hit me half a second later represented that. It made me almost feel sorry for casting the spell on him in the sixth year, the pain so great. It was like being stabbed with one hundred wickedly sharp blades at once, cuts opening up on every other square inch of my body. Blood gushed out like a fountain, enough to create a river of crimson on the cell floor. No cry escaped from my lips, as if my body had by now been hard-wired to deal with incessant torture.

Instead, I managed to force some words out. "I...saved your life,... Malfoy."

Noticeably, he hesitated for the briefest of moments and the concentration of pain in my body lessened ever so slightly.

"Shut up." He grunted maliciously, waving his wand in a familiar pattern. "Crucio!"

Dealing with the cruciatus curse had almost become second nature to me by now, and I was prepared for the excruciating feeling of being pulled apart, as if attached to two broomsticks speeding off in different directions.

"You...don't...have...to do this,... Malfoy."

Showing his first signs of weakness, the blonde haired wizard replied, "Of course I do, Potter. If I don't, he'll kill me."

I didn't comment, but the signs that he was only doing this because he was being forced to made me feel a little better. If there was one thing that Dumbledore had taught me, it was to try to see good in everybody and if there was someone who you couldn't seen any of this most basic asset in, then they should be pitied rather than hated.

He continued, "The Dark Lord wants me to harm you, Potter. He wants you alive, but not alive; he wants me to torture you until you go insane."

Dread coursed through me like ice running through my veins as memories of Frank and Alice Longbottom played in my head. Insanity was something that I feared above all, being tortured so much that I wouldn't even recognise my friends or parents like Neville's parents hadn't been able to recognise him. It was unthinkable, surely a fate much worse than death.

Another cruciatus curse hit me, this time causing me to feel as if white-hot knives were piercing ever inch of my skin; my head felt ready to blow up. Still, though, it was not as intense as others that I had suffered from and I quickly deduced that Draco Malfoy was simply not sadistic enough to use the spell to its greatest extent. Bellatrix Lestrange had told me that you really had to mean it, that you had to utterly despise the person that you were casting it on and that you had to enjoy the feeling of causing someone pain. Malfoy didn't tick those boxes.

The session went long into the night. Cruciatus curse after cruciatus curse, each time I felt myself drift away somewhat from reality. My senses dulled, my concentration broke, I found myself totally forgetting where I was. All of this, however, did not stop me from noticing the single tear which dripped from Draco Malfoy's eye as he left the room, leaving me alone once more.

**Okay dokey, not bad at all. Quite long as well; always a bonus. Hopefully, from here on in it'll only get more exciting because next chapter's going to see the meeting of the Order with all of its new members and plans for attacking Voldemort begin to be drawn up. Yay.  
As ever, mega thanks to those of you who reviewed. The efforts that some of you have gone into is just spectacular and really, you people are the reason that I've managed to write five and a half pages in a few days. Thanks!**

**Charlie.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**As ever, thanks to those of you reviewed. Always nice to hear from you, and I especially love getting your ideas for where this story is going. Hope that you all got your replies, please tell me if you didn't; it's possible that I could have accidentally left some of you out. Enough of the preamble, let's go...**

**Fleur's POV**

"What can I do about it, maman?" I asked my mother's face, which flickered quietly in the fire. What had once been an unsettling method of communication had now become the norm, with my mother's head, something that had previously freaked me out a little, appearing in my fireplace on most days.

I had just poured by heart out, finally releasing the information that had been cooped up inside of me for so long. Hoping that mother would have the answer, she'd never failed me before, I'd at last told her that I didn't love Bill, that he didn't love me and that I was generally feeling life to be very bare and meaningless without the true love that I so desired.

"Did I not say that you shouldn't have rushed into that marriage?" Mother told me almost triumphantly. Smiling a little, I nodded and reassured her that she had been, of course, absolutely right; she loved the opportunity to have a little boast every once in a while.

It didn't like overly long for her playful smugness to wipe away. "This is an unfortunate situation. Of course, I want you to be happy and I know that as someone with Veela heritage, your life will not feel as full or meaningful without passion. But, what can I do right away? Have the poor Weasleys not suffered enough over the last months?"

I snorted selfishly. "Anyone would think that they were your daughters, not me."

"Don't be so self-centred." My mother's words whipped me with the fire that I'd know she was capable of using. I loved her dearly, but she could be a very strict parent on occasion. "There is no sense in hurting an already injured family if the time is not right for either of you. Once you have an idea of who you might want to pursue next, or where and what you want to do, then I suggest that we set the wheels turning. You don't have your eye on anyone at the moment, do you?"

"No, maman." I replied, blushing slightly. Relationship talks with my parents still embarrassed me at my ripe age, and I doubted that they would never not. "I have yet to meet a man who sees me for me, who actually tries to get to know me."

"Ah yes, the allure." My mother said with a mighty sigh, "How ironic that what most people think to be our greatest power is actually our greatest curse."

My eyes flickered up to the old clock above the hearth, gently ticking away as time passed into history. The others had been out for hours already, and it was likely that they would begin to return home soon. Needless to say, this conversation could not occur with Bill, or either of the other two for that matter, in the house.

"Are there men immune to the allure?" I asked, sensing that this answer could define the way that I chose to live for the rest of my life. If there was just one man on the entire planet who would see me for me, I would seek to hunt him down and to try to find true love. I would not become like any of my fellow Veela, who travelled around from city to city, town to town and attracted men to them. They would perhaps give these men a night of their time, a night that the men would never be able to forget for as long as they lived, but break their partners' hearts by leaving in the middle of the night, never to return.

Mother looked at me with sad eyes, weary eyes, as if she had known for a while that eventually I would have to find this out. Before the words left her mouth, I knew what they would be. "Fleur, my dear girl, please don't take this too badly... but the answer is no. No man is naturally immune to the allure."

My heart thumped defiantly in my chest, determined that it would find a true partner to bond with, but as the information sunk in, for the first time I actually considered that I would never find love. Perhaps, I supposed, Bill hadn't been the worst option after all. If I was destined to wed a man who I could never love, then a nice person like Bill would always have been high up on my choice list.  
Suddenly, a realisation surged through me like adrenaline pumping through my veins. Hope? "But maman. What about papa? He loves you for who you are, doesn't he?"

"My dear Fleur." Mother started unenthusiastically, perhaps not wanting to raise my hopes. "I was the luckiest woman on the planet. When I met your father, he had just been hit with an incredibly strong stinging hex to the face. He couldn't see me and his senses were defunct, which meant that he could not sense my allure. He could talk to me before he could see what I looked like, meaning that he got to know me before falling for the allure. I was lucky because it turned out that I was in the right place at the right time, and that this man who had been hexed also just so happened to be someone who I could love."

"So there is hope for me after all?" I asked, almost pleading with her to fuel my dream.

Mother ground her teeth together, unwilling to either crush my hopes or let them rise. "Yes, theoretically. If you managed to find someone who you loved, but remember that you wouldn't be able to have any contact with them to find this out, then you could hex them as your father was. And then, even if this miracle did occur, then you would have to persuade him to love you before the hex's effects wore off."

A hope was a hope, however tiny its chances were, and I wasn't going to let anything change that.

**Harry's POV**

From after the first session, Malfoy's visits became a daily occurrence, and Voldemort stopped coming altogether. Perhaps I was no longer worth his time, and to think that once I had been the one person able to stop him, the one person who he had to regard as his equal. As usual, though, he had overcome the adversity and won and there I was, thoroughly beaten, broken and lying on a bed of my own dried blood under his total control.

Was it worse being tortured by Draco Malfoy or Voldemort himself? Of course, the latter's spells were more potent and infinitely more painful than anything I had ever experienced before this imprisonment, but the humiliation of being bent under Malfoy's control was unbearable.

"Wake up, Potter!" Malfoy noticed that I was no longer concentrating on his torture; that had been one of the definite side effects of the repeated exposure to the cruciatus curse, sectumsempra, cutting curses. My mind was turning to jelly at the perpetual pain, and that was shown by the fact that I could no longer concentrate for more than a few seconds.

Pouring from the end of his wand, biting cold icy water covered my face and a glimmer of hope realised itself in my, by this point, totally pessimistic mind. If he accidentally kept my face submerged for too long then I would drown, and finally I would be able to leave this cesspit.

Alas, my hopes were crushed as Malfoy removed the water as I started to struggle to breath; he was being careful, Voldemort's clear instructions were obviously that I had to stay alive.

"Like that, Potter?" Malfoy jeered, although his heart didn't seem entirely in it.

I managed to croak out a sarcastic reply. It was the only defiance that I could exercise. "Yeah. It's...like...Christmas... came early."

I couldn't tell whether the expression on his face was one of distaste, grudging admiration or disgust. He was unreadable these days; back in the early Hogwarts days I'd been able to read him like a picture book. From the first time I'd met him he'd made it clear that he was an arrogant, self-centred, bigoted individual who I would never be able to get on with. Noticeably, though, he had kept his cards much closer to his chest recently. His face didn't contort into emotion like it had used to, and the only thing that I could say for sure was that he was certainly stressed. His eyes were purple, his skin pale and his movement lethargic; I doubted that he got much sleep at night.

"You haven't changed a bit, have you, Potter?" He asked, his tone perhaps betraying a tiny glint of appreciation of my defiance.

I ignored him, fielding my own question. "Why do you serve him, Malfoy? Surely you can't enjoy yourself doing this, maiming and destroying to please a master who will never appreciate you in return. Aren't you lonely?"

Hoping that he had got the gist of what I was trying to say despite my croaky voice, I watched as his eyes clouded over ever so slightly. It was a good sign; perhaps he was even considering what I'd said! His eyelids suddenly squeezed tightly over his eyes and he shook slightly.

When he replied, I was astonished to see the barest traces of tears running down his cheeks. This was Malfoy, and never had I seen him turn into a waterworks. "Don't you get it, Potter? He'll kill my parents if I don't do this. I _have _to do it. And anyway, Daphne's been keeping me company recently, at least. She arrived a few weeks ago, and it has been nice to speak to someone of my own age."

If I wasn't misinterpreting his words, it seemed almost as if he actually didn't want to be doing this to me. That he truly was doing this only for the good of his parents, and thinking about that, I could certainly relate. If someone had told me that Sirius would die unless I tortured Malfoy, would I have given in? Scarily, I thought it possible that I would have.

We stayed silent for many moments, both of us recollecting ourselves after the rare moment of actual emotion between us. Malfoy turned around to stare at the wall, gathering his composure and breathing in slowly. When he turned back and looked at me again, he had returned to the state which I was used to him being in. His eyes were cold and malicious, and they were looking straight at me.

"It's time to continue." He told me, pacing up and down in front of where I sat. "The Dark Lord has commanded something different of me this time, something that we haven't done before."

He redrew his wand and flicked it quickly. "Legimens."

Quickly, I summoned up a wall to guard my mind. Drawing any happy memories that I could from the depths of my brain, I threw them all into the defence against Malfoy's invasion into my mind. There was nothing that I feared more than having my worst enemy, my nemesis, walking free in my brain. Soon, though, my wall tumbled down. Happy memories were few and far between in my psyche, so few that I simply could not fend off his attack.

My defences crumbled, and Malfoy was in my mind.

**Hermione's POV**

_**1 week later...**_

That week, the Saturday Order of the Phoenix meeting was a sight to be beholden. When the Burrow had been largely empty for all of our previous gatherings, familiar wizards and witches were popping up everywhere as the starting time for the meeting approached. Neville and Luna had done fantastically spreading the word, and the Burrow living room was almost as packed as it had used to be in the old days. I recognised Angelina Johnson sitting by George's side, patting his knee reassuringly, Dean Thomas, Seamus Finnigan, Lee Jordan, the Patil sisters and Susan Bones, all former members of the DA who had decided to continue the fight against Voldemort.

There were also people who I didn't recognise: a few hefty looking men who Kingsley seemed to have recruited and some others who looked distinctively foreign standing next to Charlie, communicating in their native tongue.

Squashed into the kitchen and sitting room of the Burrow, everybody kept to their own groups. My generation (everybody who had attended DA meetings back at Hogwarts) occupied one corner, Kingley's trusty aurors occupied another, the older members of the first Order of the Phoenix had the third and finally, Charlie's rather odd looking group of foreigners sat in the last.

All in all, I guessed that about thirty people, all highly trained and weathered, had attended. Maybe not the biggest army ever to walk the earth, but a healthy improvement on the session of last week. It was, I constantly tried to persuade myself, only the same number of people who had been in the first Order in the first war, and they had won that time.

Kingsley, the leader by a unanimous vote, walked to the front and coughed loudly. Quickly, the noise died down and everybody turned to face him. Over 6ft 3' tall, Kingsley was an imposing figure and when he wanted to speak, you listened.

"Hello, and to those of you who have never attended a meeting before, welcome to the Order of the Phoenix." He said, the barest hint of a smile traced over his lips. "Before we can begin, everybody in here must make a vow on their magic that they will never willingly betray this organisation."

"What?" Seamus piped up in his Irish drawl, more than a hint of outrage in his tone. "Can't you trust us or something?"

"Well, Mr...?"

"Finnigan."

"Mr Finnigan, I'm sure that you will feel a great deal safer if you know that there aren't any spies in the room, won't you?"

Reluctantly, Seamus nodded his head and stepped back into the crowd. I suspected that his outburst hadn't been because he was truly umbrageous, more just so that he could get himself on the map and on a name basis with Kingsley.

The leader continued. "I'm afraid that this is compulsory, so anybody who refuses to do so will have to leave and be prepared to have their memories of what they have already witnessed wiped."

Fortunately, nobody made to go towards to door and I breathed a small sigh of relief. The last thing that we needed was anyone leaving.

Kingsley organised the group so that everybody could queue up to make their oath under a stern watch from one of the senior members. He wanted to be certain that every single person in the room made the oath, which meant that there had to be witnesses to prove it. People like myself, Ron, and the rest of the Weasleys who had already made our oaths stood back and watched the boring spectacle pass, all of us really wanting to get onto the actual reason for calling the meeting. Examining the room absent mindedly, I noticed Fleur standing alone in the kitchen, a long glass of pale white wine gripped lazily in her hand as she stared up into the sky. As usual, she and Bill seemed to be totally ignoring each other; they were lucky, it seemed to me, that Mrs Weasley was so busy organising everything. If she hadn't been, then surely she would have cottoned on to their apparent disregard for each other.

Surprisingly, Kingsley sidled up to me as I stood alone on the sidelines. Judging by the fact that he had moved over as soon as Ron had gone to talk to his brothers, I guessed that what he had to say was for me and me alone.

"What do you think?" He asked me, getting straight to the point.

"About the new members?" I checked, before replying at his nod. "I think that they're going to be a real help. All of them have experienced battle before, and they also want to defeat You-Know-Who as much as anyone. For the first time since Harry..., yeah, I actually think that we have a chance."

Kingsley shook his head; he never had been one for falsely reassuring people. "No. We don't have enough. We'd need probably more than double the number of fighters that we've got now."

"Double?" I gasped, scrunching my eyes together hopelessly. It had taken a supreme effort to drag these members together, and the chances of getting another thirty people together (at least) seemed like a mission impossible.

Kingsley nodded gravely. "Double. Our spy informs us that You-Know-Who has over one hundred death eaters, numerous giants, and ranks of werewolves at his disposal. And apparently, he can get more if he so desires."

One hundred Death Eaters, of course, did not seem like a massive amount considering that this was the most powerful wizard in the country, and even the world. But, if I knew anything about the Dark Lord, then I guessed that he would want only the most accomplished and dangerous witches and wizards in his ranks, not any old magical who felt that they sympathised with him. Still, it was seventy more fighters than we had, and most of them were probably better than the majority of ours. The odds, I knew, were certainly not on our side. But then again, when had they ever been?

**Ron's POV**

Seeing everyone, despite the grim circumstances, was undeniably nice. Luna had come dressed in an outfit that looked like an attempted cross between a mongoose and a flamingo, both involved in a rather nasty accident. Comically, when asked about her clothes, she would just look at whoever had questioned her blankly, as if there was nothing bizarre about wearing a bright pink top with a shining golden skirt, accompanied by her usual dirigible plum earrings.

Neville's face had been gleaming with excitement at the prospect of another Dumbledore's Army as he'd gone around greeting everybody who had fought with him against the Carrows the year before. We had all struggled to keep in touch over the last months, none of us knowing who could be reading our messages.

I'd smiled when Dean had seen Seamus again, the too having been inseparable for so many years and then torn apart by a war which kept everyone hiding fearfully. Dean had roared delightedly, sprinted over to see his friend and pulled him into a manly bear hug. Even Kingsley had smiled slightly at the spectacle.

When everybody was suitably under oath, Kingsley could finally continue his speech in front on his impatient audience. Nobody had come there that evening to dither; every single person in that room was there because they wanted to fight Voldemort.

"Thank you everybody for doing that," He boomed gratefully, "I'm sure that the time was worth it, because we can now be sure that everyone here will stay faithful to our cause. As I'm sure you are aware, You-Know-Who grows stronger by the day. More and more fighters are always joining his cause, and I believe that if we want to have any chance of beating him then we will have to do it as soon as possible and totally out of the blue; a surprise attack."

A relatively young voice sounded from the crowd. "Aren't we going to do any training?"

"I have been informed that every person in this room knows how to hold their own in a fight, so we are trusting to you practice spells at home. We cannot waste time doing so in the meetings, because I truly believe that if we give You-Know-Who enough time to prepare then he will be too strong to be defeated by anybody." Kingsley replied immediately, obviously having given this forethought.

"So when are we going to do it, you know, attack?" Seamus piped up again.

"Yeah, and where?" Somebody else shouted.

"We believe that You-Know-Who has a strong advantage in terms of numbers of fighters on his side," The leader of the Order told us. "We can overcome this by surprising them. I am suggesting that we invade his stronghold in exactly a month's time, in the dead of night, and catch him off guard."

A month. I was no tactical genius, but somehow a single month didn't seem like enough time to prepare as much as possible. By waiting, we could have got more information about the enemy, more fighters might have joined our cause, we might have been able to train more. Kingsley was, of course, the best man for thinking up the plan, but this short an amount of time seemed like suicide. The DA members were good fighters, but could they really be expected to go against the Dark Lord's most powerful witches and wizards, and survive?

Looking around at all of the friendly faces, the people who I had known for so many years, I realised how sad I would feel if even a single one of them died. My family would be at risk again; what would happen if I lost another sibling to this terrible war? Hermione would be putting herself in the firing line, and although it seemed to be me keeping her going most of the time, I knew that I would not be able to go on without her.

I'd wanted to fight for weeks, months, now. So why was I suddenly feeling so doubtful about this whole idea?

**Phew, I really didn't know whether I was going to get this out for today so I'm glad that I managed to get it done. Don't see any major problems with what I wrote, and I'm glad that we're getting ever closer to the start of the Harry/Fleur pairing, so everything's shaping up pretty nicely right now.**

**As ever, massive thanks to my regular reviewers. I always see a comment from 'The Coruscant (did I spell that right?) Veela. Slytherin66, Tangolikeoak, Wolfman613, and Candygirl14. Those are the people who seemed to have reviewed every single chapter and I'm eternally grateful to them for it. I'm extremely sorry if I've missed anyone out.**

**Expect the next chapter on Saturday, probably. Maybe Sunday. Hopefully Saturday. Maybe.**

**Feel free to PM me if you need anything, or if you just want a chat!**

**Charlie**


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

**Thanks everyone for reviewing, blah blah blah, great effort, really appreciate it, more blahs, I know that you want me to just start the story. Let's go.**

**Spy's POV**

From my unique viewpoint deep in the heart of the Dark Lord's stronghold, I could see absolutely everything that went on. The Death Eaters repeatedly peppering away at magical dummies, the variety and accuracy of their spellwork truly good enough to be one of You-Know-Who's finest. They could get a direct hit from fifty metres away, lop off limbs as if slicing through butter left in the sun, inflict horrible curses with the most casual flicks of their wands, a total lack of disregard for their victims shining through in abundance. All the time as they did it they laughed about what they were doing to the dummies, joking that they were mutilating mudbloods. And to think that I had once agreed with them about blood segregation, made those very same jokes. Just thinking about it left a sour taste on my tongue.

Separated from the Death Eaters were the werewolves, who slept by day and feasted by night. Fenrir Greyback was teaching them to be savage with no limits, building up their appetites for flesh enough that they desired it like he did even when not influenced by the full moon. They were disgusting creatures, no longer bearing any resemblance to the humans that they were supposed to be for most days a month. Greasy hair covered their faces and chests like fur on an animal, with great manes stretching from their scalps to the smalls of their backs. Sharper than a surgeon's knives were their teeth, gleaming dirtily as they opened their mouths to leer repulsively. Their eyes were bloodshot and haggard, always flickering around hungrily as if looking for another target. You could not have told that they were once normal humans like myself, regular people who had attended Hogwarts like me, been sorted into Slytherin like me.

Nobody suspected a thing. Unnoticed in the crowd of people just like me, I slithered around and observed the day to day happenings of the Dark Lord's stronghold. I was greeted in the corridors like a friend, and why should they have thought any different? Throughout my time at Hogwarts I had been just like they were then, persecuting muggle borns with a malicious pleasure, strutting around the corridors as if I'd owned the place and hoping for a day when You-Know-Who overthrew the ministry so that my great house could boast its authority as the most powerful. This, of course, didn't stop my heart from being a constant drum in my chest. Its pulse never seemed to drop to a normal level and the cold fist which enclosed it never let up; the fact that one slip could have betrayed my entire cover story was not lost on me. If anyone saw me sending my owls to my Order of the Phoenix contact every night long after dark, or if one of the cleverer Death Eaters got suspicious at me witnessing their training sessions... well, I was hardly in a secure position.

My task was almost done. After _they _had killed my best friend, I had sworn to do my best to bring the Dark Lord's side down and restore the old order. My Order contact assured me that the time was nearing, and that whoever won the upcoming battle, it would see the end of one of the sides. In fact, I had been given permission to leave my position if I so desired. Already, I had given the Order the entire layout of the stronghold, details of You-Know-Who's army, all the rumours that I had heard about his aims and everything else relevant that I had observed. Only one thing kept me there: my damned curiosity.

Every evening, Draco would leave to see a prisoner, the name of who was not allowed to be disclosed. It sounded to me that the Dark Lord had set the youngest Malfoy the task of committing atrocities on the poor soul who was kept in that cell, and my crippling curiosity demanded that I know who could be put under such high security, who could be so secret that Draco was not allowed to give me or anyone else any details about him or her. Nobody knew who this prisoner, nor that such a captive even existed. Whether it was the thought that this person's identity could have been important to the Order, or whether it was just my nosiness demanding that I find out, this was the only reason that I was still in that cursed castle and the sooner I found out, the sooner I could leave and try to forget all of the atrocities that I had witnessed.

**Fleur's POV**

The Burrow kitchen table had turned into the strategy table, with a number of senior members of the Order crammed around a detailed and hand drawn map which Kingsley had laid out. Me, Bill, Percy, Charlie, the Weasley parents and Minerva McGonagall listened carefully to what our leader proposed. It was unfortunate, I reflected, that we were all, apart from Kingsley, so inexperienced in matters such as this. Certainly, I felt out of my depth. Never had I planned for a battle before; I could duel very well, but strategy had never been something for which I had been relied on.

However much I hated to admit it, I knew that we perhaps needed Hermione and Ronald on the strategy team rather than someone like me. Despite their younger ages, they had already experienced more battle than I had and although I was confident that I would beat either of them in a duel, planning for a battle was not something that I was used to. Instead, though, it was me there and them outside with all of the other members practising and teaching about fighting.

"Our operation must be quick." Kingsley explained strategically and to the point, as ever. "Minerva will be dealing with the wards, but she will only be able to keep them down for a limited amount of time, am I right?"

"You are, Kingsley." McGonagall agreed. "You-Know-Who's wards and defences are powerful enough that if you try to walk through the boundaries without permission, you will instantly be incinerated. They are the second most powerful I've ever seen."

Bill, beside me, chipped in. "Which are the most powerful? Hogwarts?"

McGonagall nodded at my husband. "Correct, Mr Weasley, and it is because of my knowledge of the Hogwarts protection that I can keep You-Know-Who's down for some time. You will have only a short amount of time, though, because once he realises that the wards aren't working, he will put them back up again different to how they are now, and I will no longer be able to control them."

"About how long will we have?" Charlie asked, the frown on his face betraying the doubt that he had in the plan so far. I couldn't honestly have said that I disagreed with him.

"That depends." McGonagall replied. "As long as none of you are noticed and the alarm is not sounded, he will not know. The aim must be for everyone to get into position without being spotted. Once the alarm is sounded, I suspect that he will fight rather than think to put the wards back up but if he does, it will take him a few minutes."

Kingsley nodded gravely. "This is how it will work. We will be split into multiple groups and everyone shall approach from a different side. Some groups will attack the barracks, where we know that the Death Eaters are staying, some will keep watch for the werewolves, who should be out hunting, and one group, lead personally by me, will go to You-Know-Who's quarters. Hopefully, we should get to this point without being noticed."

For the first time, I doubtfully made my opinions clear. "I 'ave to say zhat zhis plan appears to 'inge on a lot of luck, Kingsley."

While I wanted to help, for me there was no sense in simply throwing ourselves at the enemy and hoping to win. Getting inside the castle without being noticed seemed like a mission impossible, and then we'd still have to take out all of the patrols quietly as well. If this miracle did occur, then still Kingsley's group would have to defeat the most powerful wizard on the planet. Even five to one, I didn't fancy their chances. There was also a great chance that he would simply put the wards back up as soon as he had the chance and if my knowledge of magical protection was correct, I was pretty sure that it was, then we would all be trapped inside his castle, under his mercy. This was a suicide mission.

Kingsley's eyes flickered over to me before he coolly answered, untroubled by my criticism. "I'm afraid that we have very little choice, Mrs Weasley."

Shuddering slightly at the use of my married name, a name which I desperately wanted to give up, I listened as he continued.

He said, "He gets only more powerful by the day so we cannot dither. Perhaps with time on our side we could come up with something better, but if we want to take him at his weakest then we must strike soon."

"'E will have all of zhe advantages, Kingsley!" I protested, glancing over to our fighters outside. Most of them still looked like kids, some just months past adulthood. Could we really send them to their deaths, letting them think that they actually had a chance to win? "You-Know-Who 'as more fighters, better fighters, 'is castle, zhe wards, zhe werewolves and most importantly, 'im."

Bill lay an awkward hand on my shoulder, putting up the pretence of being a reassuring husband in front of his mother; perhaps he was embarrassed that I was contradicting somebody with years more experience than myself, or maybe he was just tired of the sound of my voice.

Kingsley retorted, "I can assure you, Mrs Weasley, that he will always have these advantages and more to come in the future. We have to just overcome them. But of course, you are welcome to sit this one out if you so wish."

"Yeah," Bill agreed patronisingly, quick to pretend to be concerned about by well being. "Leave this one to the experienced fighters."

He probably hadn't meant for the words to come out like that, but still I growled at the idea of the _children _training outside being finer duellists than me. At Beuxbatons, I had won the school duelling competition in only my fifth year, and the fact that I had been selected for the Tri-Wizard Tournament only reflected my talents. Perhaps I hadn't given my best performance in that particular event, but I had been chosen because of my superiority over my fellow students at fighting and I would not have anyone forget that. For them to suggest that I stayed out of this one was to suggest that I didn't have it in me, that I wasn't brave or powerful enough. They could go to Hell.

"Of course I am going to fight, Beel." I snapped at him, for the first time displaying my animosity towards him. "Don't try to tell me zhat I'm not an 'experienced fighter'."

The table went silent for a moment, which was perhaps a tribute to how well Bill and I had kept up the impression of being a loving couple; nobody was used to any tension between us.

"What shall zhe groups be, zhen?" I broke the silence, realising my mistake. Mrs Weasley finding out about the problems in our relationship was simply not an option, not unless I wanted to have to have new ear drums fitted.

"Good question." Kingsley replied, happy to put any awkwardness behind us. "The Weasleys, except you, Bill, will all stay together and will lead the attack on the barracks."

"Why everyone else and not me?" Bill questioned concernedly.

"Molly wants to protect all of her children, but you might be needed for a special task. I'll talk about that later." Kingsley responded swiftly. "The next group will be made up of me and my aurors. We will go straight to You-Know-Who's quarters and attempt to battle him. The other two groups will be made up of young DA members, one led by Mr. Longbottom and the other by Miss Lovegood. Each of those teams will have an experienced older member to help them, and they will also attack the barracks."

"What about me and Beel?" I asked, not having heard our names included.

Kingsley's dark eyes ghosted over us. "You two and Hestia Jones will patrol the walls and watch out for the return of the werewolves. I thought that Bill might want to have this task for revenge against Greyback. As well as watching, you will be meeting with the spy and making sure that she gets out of there safely. We think that this attack could blow her cover."

"So she iz a female?" I noticed, picking out the 'she' and 'her' from his sentence. "Might it be 'elpful for us to know 'oo she iz?"

Kingsley shook his head sternly. "She will identify herself by saying a codeword, which is yet to be decided. When she arrives, one of you will immediately escort her back to the Burrow."

We all nodded, our roles decided, and pondered over the mechanics of the plan as our eyes flickered to watch our fighters, who trained hard outside as we thought. Would they be good enough to defeat You-Know-Who's army when the time came in two weeks? Could we really pull this off?

**Harry's POV**

After two weeks of excessive invasion into my privacy, Draco Malfoy knew my own head better than I did. As he learned more, tearing his way scornfully through my dearest memories of love and friendship, I forgot more as he disconnected and destroyed the retentions with gleeful joy. Great pleasure was derived from watching the intimate moments of my life: that first kiss under the mistletoe with Cho Chang, lazing around with a carefree abandon in the Summer at Hogwarts, the hugs which I didn't get enough of from Sirius. He defiled them all, putting the misery of his life under Voldemort's control to one side in his enjoyment.

Then, he would watch and re-watch the things that I would have preferred to forget. Beatings from the Dursleys, being locked in the tiny space of the cupboard under the stairs, Cedric Diggory's death at the hands of the traitor, Voldemort's return, Sirius falling backwards through the veil as he went to join my dad at last, Dumbledore's slow fall from the ascendancy of his greatness to the coldness of his marble tomb, the bodies of Fred and Remus and Tonks all lined up on the floor or the Great Hall. So much pain, so little joy. That was my life.

Possessing no energy to stop his rampage, I only guarded one secret from his probing of my deepest thoughts and mind. Securely under lock and key, behind the small brick wall of anything happy I could remember, was the secret of the tiny black stone in my pocket. I wasn't going to let him get his filthy hands on that, not on my life.

"Ewww! You kissed the female Weasel!" Malfoy jeered, pulling himself out of my mind like a rabbit emerging from its hole. He sounded like a toddler, something which I would have insulted him about if I'd had that amount of energy; my system was completely empty.

He continued, "Not a lot of happiness in your brain is there, Potter? Pretty bleak in there."

Disgusted by his very presence, my dry mouth tried to spit on the floor ahead of his feet. What I would have done for a glass of water...

The obvious pleasure that he was getting from my pain disgusted me. Already he and his master had brought me to unexplored territories of pain, new boundaries which I doubted anyone would ever experience again. My body was covered in angry scars from their anger; all had bled, for a time, but all had been closed up again so that I wouldn't bleed out. That didn't stop them from hurting like hell for every damned second of the day. Then there was the perpetual pain which lay under the skin, gnawing about at my insides like worms crawling around in the flesh. That was the long term effect of all of the cruciatus curses that had been cast on me.

Other than the muscle aches that I suffered from every time I that I moved and the bruises which coloured my skin an ugly purple from being knocked around a little too much, the other pain was all psychological. My brain was falling apart, memories dropping like apples from a tree and those which remained unable to connect with each other to form any flashbacks of great length. The emotion of compassion, once as strong as any inside me, dripped away like a leaky pipe. I found it hard to think _anything _positive, remember anything that might have made me that flashed around in my mind were the dreaded images of the tens of bodies sprawled on the floor of the Great Hall, all people who I could have saved, and the expression of surprise on Sirius' face as the fatal curse hit him, forcing him back through that whispering veil. It was like an eternal nightmare, one which I would never awake from.

"Speak when you're spoken to, Potter." Malfoy exclaimed, outraged at me lack of basic manners to my betters. Kicking me around like a pathetic rag doll, he laughed at my helplessness. There was nothing that I could do but let myself be humiliatingly kicked around, my limbs limply hanging at my sides. Somewhere around me, my glasses fell and quietly clanged as their dirty metal frames hit the stone floor. I made no effort to retrieve them; glasses or no glasses, I could see nothing in this darkness.

How was I still sane? How was I still even alive? My body and my psyche had gone through so much; how could they still function at all? Frank and Alice Longbottom, two better people than I could ever be, had succumbed to it eventually and yet somehow, every fibre in my body resisted. It was, in my opinion, most unfair. I had come to associate insanity with a kind of freedom, a liberation which I would have done absolutely anything to achieve.

**Hermione's POV**

"Keep your arm a little straighter, Neville." I gently reminded the clumsy Gryffindor as he tried to fire a body bind curse at Ron. He had, of course, improved his technique immeasurably since his first years at Hogwarts, when even he had described himself as 'almost a squib'. That had come about from Harry's training at the Dumbledore's Army sessions and now, although he still had the occasional problem or need for a tweak in the technical aspects of his magic, he could duel as well as anyone.

"Yeah, thanks." He blushed embarrassedly at his mistake. "Petrificus Totalus!"

Concentrating hard, he waved his wand in a quick key shape and the bright light erupted from the tip of his wand, flying through the air like a speeding muggle bullet and hitting Ron full on in the chest. Immediately, Ron's arms snapped to his sides and his legs sprang together before he swayed and collapsed to the floor, a frustrated look in his still moving eyes. He hated being used as a dummy, especially in his own back garden.

"Good job, Neville!" I grinned encouragingly before shuddering inwardly as I wondered whether my words could be construed as patronising. How Harry had managed to encourage everyone in such a way that he always seemed genuinely impressed, I would never know. Naturally, he had always been a really good teacher at defence against the dark arts, easily inspiring us as pupils to be passionate about fighting darkness and working wonders on our duelling skills. It annoyed me to think that I would never be as good as he had been, despite the fact that I had read and read up on it and he would have never had to turn a page.

As Neville revived and remobilised my boyfriend, I walked around the group and continued to give tips that I imagined Harry would have. It didn't feel right, usurping my late friend's position when I could never have been as good as he had been.

They were good, all of them far better than people of their age could have been expected to be. Wands waved like clockwork, spells were cast with barely a sound escaping from their casters' lips, blue shield charms absorbed the blows of powerful spells with an apparent ease. These people had been taught by some of the best teachers of this subject in the world, namely Remus and Harry, but also some of the worst. They had seen more action than most fully grown adults, witnessed the horrors of battle and some even the unparalleled experience of watching the spark of life leave a dear friend from childhood. They knew what was required of them, they knew how to fight and each and every one of them wanted more than anything to see the fall of the despised Dark Lord.

But would that be enough?

**Another chapter done, another sigh of relief breathed. The time is now twenty six minutes past midnight, but it was worth it to complete this enjoyable piece of writing. Crunch time now, though. Next chapter we have got the bit battle, the invasion that everyone's been waiting for. Most importantly, though, we should have (finally) the meeting between Harry and Fleur. The pairing of this story will start.**

**I gave you a few clues about the spy this chapter by writing from her POV and telling you that she is indeed a female. I'd imagine that a few of you will work it out but no sweat if you don't, because she'll be revealed next time. Then I blabbed on for a while about Fleur's doubts in the plan, Harry's pain (blah blah) and Hermione's jealously that she's not as good as Harry was at teaching. Boring stuff, really, filler material. Oh well.**

**Comments are, of course, appreciated. It would be nice to see some fresh faces offer their contributions because I don't want to be purely reliant on the wonders who take the time to do so ****_every single _****chapter: The Coruscant Veela, Slytherin66, Wolfman613, TangolikeOak. **

**Thank you everyone so much simply for reading and enjoying (hopefully!) my stories, and an even bigger thanks to those of you who have showed their interest by reviewing. You guys are the best. Expect to hear more from me around mid week.**

**See you next time!**

**Bye!**

**Au revoir **

**Sorry, that was pretentious.**

**Just a simple goodbye will do.**

**Charlie.**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7 (I think? Kinda lost track...)**

**Well. Guess you guys will find out whether you're right or wrong about the spy in this chapter. Had some pretty good suggestions and some, ah, interesting (?) ones. I won't give away any details yet, although I will just say to the person who messaged me totally convinced that the spy is in fact Dobby, you couldn't really have been further from the truth ;). On with chapter 7/8/6 (whatever it is).**

**Neville's POV**

The fateful evening had finally arrived. A dark cloud had imposed itself over the sky, engulfing any light which tried to break through, and the night was coloured the purest of blacks. Trying to ignore Luna's casual prediction that this was evidence that Voldemort and the founders of the Rotfang conspiracy had formed an alliance, I instead listened to Kingsley's more reassuring suggestion that this would only help our attempts to stay stealthy. The task ahead of us was a monumental one, a night which could turn out to be one of the most important in wizarding history. The next few hours could see the fall of Voldemort, the liberation of wizards and witches in Britain, the safety of thousands of muggles and muggle-borns out there, unsure of their future. We could change the course of history with success, but with failure we could doom the country to having no elite force to stand up to the Dark Lord who terrorised a country, who threatened an entire planet.

In truth, I was excited. How I had missed the feeling of adrenaline coursing like a blazing fire through my veins, summoning up new found energy from reserves that I had never even known existed. The whiz of a speeding curse zipping inches past my face, followed by the incomparable sensation of realisation that I had avoided death by the tiniest of margins. The resounding thumps of my drum-like heart as I stood in the heat of the battle, chaos in its purest forms smothering me like a blanket of pain and destruction. Nothing could compare to standing tall and defiant as people, both friends and enemies, fell like dominoes beside me. Of course, nobody would have expected this from me of all people; I was not a violent soul, not a person who was supposed to be addicted to the thrill of the fight. And I wasn't. I wasn't a mindless thug who basked in the joy of pointlessly toppling a harmless person in the corridor, like Crabbe, Goyle or Malfoy. It was the poetic justice that I loved, the feeling of fighting back against those who spread fear and pain like a nationwide famine. This was my addiction, and that night I would be getting hooked on it for hopefully the final time.

When I looked around at my fellow fighters, I saw the quiet buzz of fear that spread like an infection through the ranks of an army before the blood, sweat and tears of a battle to come. Some of them were going to die, and they knew it. They had all witnessed the horrors of the Battle of Hogwarts, when dear friends and even family had been lost to all assembled. There was nothing as horrible as turning to see somebody who you had known for your entire life fall to the floor, the entire world going into a profound slow motion as you had to helplessly witness the spark of life and animation leave their body forever, the realisation that you would never exchange a joke or conversation with them ever again. The sinking feeling of knowing that you hadn't even been able to say goodbye, to apologise for their passing, and you would never be able to. I, and everyone around me, would have to go through that all again today. None of us could be sure that we would even see another morning. I shook off the melancholy and profundity that occupied my brain; this was a necessary sacrifice, and I knew that every one of the immeasurably brave people who had emerged from the safety of their shells to fight, and win, were ready to make the necessary sacrifice. I certainly was but Merlin, I hoped that I would live to see the next sunrise.

**Hermione's POV**

The battlefield was the one thing I dreaded above anything else. You see, Harry had been right. Nothing, no amount of feverish reading in the library or training after dark, could prepare you for the horrors of real life war; you couldn't learn to not break down into tears and fall as a dear one collapsed into the realm of death by your side, to keep your cool under the constant barrage of life threatening spells. Some people just didn't naturally have it, and I was one of them.

To this day, I still felt the biting ice in my veins which had frozen upon hearing Voldemort's boasts of the death of my best friend. His gloats had been delivered with such a cold glee that I'd known that he'd been telling the absolute truth; Harry had willingly walked to his death to give us a fighting chance to beat him. Not a single day, not a single hour, went by when I didn't find myself missing that cheeky grin which had occurred less and less as the burden of being the 'Chosen One' had caught up with him in our sixth year, the searching emerald eyes which welcomed you in with an unquestioning acceptance. Thanks to his unwavering desire to keep his burden from the shoulders of others, still it was only me who knew why he had walked to his death. The injustice of it all; nobody would ever know the pure bravery behind his sacrifice. He held a special sanctuary in my heart, one that nobody would ever occupy, and I would never forget our years together.

When you looked at Kingsley, you saw something impossible to question. Whatever he said, went. He had the unshakable trust of everyone in our group, the certainty that he would do his upmost to lead us to success and that nobody else could. Looking around at the aura of nervousness and anxiety which dominated the Order, I knew that he would need to make an inspiring address to us if we were to enter the heat of battle with the confidence in our cause that the Death Eaters had. He didn't fail to disappoint.

Walking ahead of where we waited to hear his final words before we all apparated to the castle that Voldemort occupied as his stronghold, Kingsley seemed to stand at eight foot tall. He dominated the Burrow's garden, immediately capturing the unfaltering attention of all of those who stood before him. The quiet whispers between jittery fighters stopped in a flash, the only noise around us coming from the quietly swirling winds. Our leader stood before us, imposing and unbreakable. He couldn't have looked more powerful, everything about his tall, straight posture and the determined hardness of his eyes giving off a confidence in the success of our cause. This was a man who meant business.

"In years to come, it will be your names which feature as legendary heroes in the history books because today we are going to fight, and today we are going to defeat the tyranny of _his _rule. You, the bravest wizards and witches that grace our country, have come to fight as men and women who don't fear his rule, and as such you will go down in history. I know that many of you will be having your doubts about the immanent fight because I have been doing this for thirty years now. Yes, you may die, and if you leave now you'll live. For a while. But dying comfortably in your beds many years from now, maybe at a ripe old age, can you really tell me that you wouldn't regret missing this day, this historic day where finally the bravest witches and wizards stand up to the forces of darkness, and tell them that we are not scared of them. That they can never take our freedom. Nobody will die today, not really, because every single one of you will be immortalised as a saviour of Britain. So back out if you want, abandon this great country to his rule, but I tell you one thing: I'm going to that castle, and I am going to beat him. Who's with me?"

There was a scary moment of silence. If Kingsley was having any doubts about his speech, he certainly wasn't showing it; that stony face was as unreadable as ever. Had his words been rousing enough? Had they convinced these people to walk bravely to potential death, or had they just scared those very same fighters away?

I was answered swiftly after. Suddenly, the crowd erupted into a cacophony of cheers and applause; Kingsley's inspiration had spread like a blazing wildfire. Were these the same people before me, who seconds ago had all shared a mutual expression of sullenness and fear? Where their eyes had been dark and low, pointing nervously to the floor, there was now a common explosion of effulgent determination. Kingsley had convinced them that they would be heroes, legends who great poets of the future would tell stories about, no matter the outcome of that night's conflict; he had given them the immortality that they needed to go and fight with no fear, with nothing held back.

"Kingsley! Kingsley! Kingsley!" People began to chant, reminding me of a band of tribal warriors. He allowed himself a small smile, only causing his ovation to louden at the rare gesture. Shaking my head in silent admiration, I knew that he would make a very fine Minister for Magic when, or if, we won this war. Rowdy as if they were already the conquering army, my fellow freedom fighters took a while to calm down as Kingsley stood patiently waiting for quiet at the front.

"Thank you," he said sincerely once the din finally ceased, "I could not ask for a better group of people to fight beside me. Before we leave, I must quickly just run through the plan once more. We will all take the portkey to our spy's sleeping quarters, when Minerva has taken down the wards, at which point me and the other aurors will silently take out the guards on patrol. You will stay as quiet as little mice whilst we are gone, and you will not move until we get back. If we are spotted, I will send blue sparks into the sky and you must all immediately come back here using the portkey. Has everyone got that? I will not have anyone risking the safety of their fellow men and women because they haven't listened."

A murmur of agreement passed through the listeners, some of them perhaps feeling patronised by Kingsley's concerns; after all, these people had all seen action before.

"Good." He said, his eyes flicking down to check the time on his battered old watch. "We just need to wait until Minerva ret-"

Midway through his sentence, there was the familiar split-second churning in a small concentration of the air ahead of us and our transfiguration professor materialised, her trademark stern expression inexplicably on her face.

"Speak of the devil and she shall appear," she spoke with a small hint of humour. Had that been her idea of a joke? "It is done, and nobody noticed. We can get in."

A minuscule half-smile set itself lightly on our tall leader's lips at his friend's impressive timing, and once again I marvelled at his calmness just minutes before what could turn out to be one of the most important conflicts in wizarding history.

"It is time, then." He told us simply, striding with no more than three long paces to the large family table which stood in the Weasley back garden. "Everybody make sure that you are touching this table, and be sure that you do not let go until we have safely arrived."

"What?" Seamus blurted out, disbelief evident in his narrow, bright eyes. "Is that the porkey? I thought they were supposed to be, y'know, smaller than that?"

"There are a lot of us to fit round, Seamus." I reminded him, rather patiently in my opinion.

One by one, we all followed Kingsley to the old, weathered table and firmly gripped its edges. Last of all to join us was Fleur, who had unsurprisingly not spoken for the entire evening. As per usual, she was keeping to herself but despite her best efforts, I was pretty sure that I new what she was feeling. Reluctance and doubt was evident in her eyes if you looked past her practised apathy of perpetual confidence; I guessed that she thought the plan to be as flimsy as I did. With everyone's eyes on her and a pleading look from her 'husband', she delicately placed her small flute of white wine, something that had seemed to be a constant presence in her hand of late, down on the windowsill and gracefully took small steps towards the table herself. Running her thin, shaking fingers through the silvery hair which cascaded like a waterfall of glinting metal down her shoulders, she took the last remaining place at the table and we were gone.

**Ron's POV**

I hated portkeys. One moment you'd be standing totally relaxed and steady and the next, a sensation reminiscent of having a fishing hook unceremoniously grab you from the navel area and literally pull you to your location. Anyone who could actually emerge from portkey travel on their feet was some kind of god in my eyes; it had always seemed like a mission impossible to me. I was fortunate, at least, that I was not the only one who tumbled to the floor immediately upon entering the well furnished room of our spy, who incidentally was nowhere to be seen. Neville's fall was even less graceful than mine, the sensation causing him to spin around a few times before collapsing in a jumbled up mess. Naturally, of course, Fleur, who looked as radiant as ever, landed with simply a delicate step, not even the faintest sign of a stumble in her movement. Eyebrows raised, she looked condescendingly down to us on the floor, yawning with boredom at how obviously easy she had found the landing. Merlin, she looked so casually incredible. Her eyes... A deathly glare from Hermione and an angry hiss from Kingsley at the noise we'd made upon entry snapped me out of the hypnotic trance and I resolved to keep myself from looking at Fleur. Somehow, I found it next to impossible to control my urges when I was around her and judging by the infatuated, open mouthed expressions that had been ever present on the faces of the other males in the room, (apart from the older men, of course) I guessed that I wasn't the only one.

"Shhhh!" Kingsley hissed furiously; we had barely been in the castle for ten seconds, and already we'd nearly given ourselves away. He continued, his whisper barely a breath. "We should be back in about ten minutes. Stay quiet, and watch the sky. Remember: blue sparks mean that you've got to get out of here, and immediately."

With everyone's nods of agreement, he gestured for his small group of aurors to follow him. Ghosting over the floor freakishly silently, their professionalism was obvious as they succeeded in slipping out of the lavish quarters without a single squeak. For now, the night's success was on their shoulders.

"It's nice in here." I heard Luna whisper dreamingly, her fingers absent mindedly rubbing the dark satin of our spy's bed. "I wonder why she hasn't put up any nargle nets...?"

Lowering my eyebrows confusedly, I stepped across to her. "What do you mean, 'she'?"

Breathing in my ear humorously, in the same tone as she always used when I'd said or done something rather stupid, Hermione provided me with a reply. "Look around you, Ronald. You don't see very many boys with a make-up dresser or a cupboard full of skirts and dresses, not to mention the fact that the bed is actually made. What more proof do you need?"

Seamus joined the conversation with his own Irish whisper. "I don't know, it could be Malfoy's...?"

I let out a short laugh, quickly extinguished by Hermione's firm hand over my mouth. Withering under the stern gazes of everybody in the room, the one from my mum by far the worst, I embarrassedly gazed down to the tiled floor.

"Remarkable." Dad broke the awkwardness by murmuring, a muggle fire lighter in his hands. Marvelling at its 'genius' he entertained himself by flicking with the switch, turning the flame on and off. Neville responsibly kept an eye on the sky, the only one to remember to follow Kingsley's instructions to watch the sky. I wondered what he was feeling at that moment; fear? Excitement? Relish at the chance for revenge?

With most people frustratedly pacing up and down, in that unwelcome stasis before a battle where they didn't want to think about what was to come but inevitably did, Fleur stood alone at the dresser. Absent mindedly, she ran her long fingers delicately along the row of small bottles of colourful perfume and make-up that stood neatly, waiting to be used. Whether she was actually interested in them or not, I did not know; she very rarely seemed to wear any kind of make-up. Why would she when she so obviously didn't need it? Her skin had a full, natural flush to it, one that other women could only hope to achieve artificially, and her eyelashes were so perfectly black that it was difficult to tell whether that was also intrinsic or if she was just very good at painting them.

Finally, after what seemed like centuries, Kingsley and his auror colleagues slipped back into the room, carefully placing the door shut behind them so that it did not make the tiniest of noises. Judging by the badly hidden expressions of immense satisfaction, and the lack of any kind of visible bruising or injury, I guessed that their mission had been a success with flying colours. The whole room breathed a deep sigh of relief; nobody had liked the feeling of not knowing whether the plan could go ahead or not, and the state of being unable to help the situation.

Nobody needed to ask whether the plan had worked or not, and Kingsley launched straight into the next part of the plan. I noted that he hadn't allowed himself a satisfied look; he didn't consider the job even nearly done. "Now for phase two. Everyone split up into your groups."

With a practised efficiency, everybody silently rearranged themselves to be standing with their team mates; not a word had to be spoken. With me were a relatively familiar group of people: my family. Ginny, who had persuaded mum and dad to let her come along because of her suitable age, George, Percy, Charlie, myself and our parents were all there, with Bill being the only one of the Weasley clan not with us due to 'a special task'. My eyes flickered over to Hermione, looking at her concernedly. I didn't like the fact that we were in separate groups; we had always stood side-by-side in battle, and I didn't like the idea that we would have to get through this one in different circumstances. Would I be able to continue fighting if I didn't know whether she was okay, alive and fighting, or lying dead on the floor at the hands of one of our numerous enemies? I forced the sickening image out of my head; not the right attitude.

"Good." Kingsley continued quietly, "Everyone knows where they are going?" At the same old murmur of agreement, he went on, "the signal is the same as ever. If you see blue sparks, apparate back to the Burrow immediately. Remember what I said earlier, and give this your all. By sunrise, we'll be celebrating the fall of our history's most evil figure. Good luck."

**Fleur's POV**

Standing on the castle's north parapet, I couldn't help but feel as if we'd been given the useless job. Only minutes ago, the battle had begun as our fellow groups had charged into the barracks, and we had no idea of what was going on. Lights of all colours, brighter than a beaming ray of sunlight, could be seen through the windows as allies and enemies chucked a plethora of spells against each other, but we knew not any details of who was still fighting and who, Merlin forbid, had fallen. Looking over to my side, I noticed Bill trembling nervously next to me. However troubled I was about the prospect of people I knew dying in there, his fear must have been a billion times greater; many of them were his family, others people who had had known for a great deal of his life, and he was forced to stand helpless and just watch. Not knowing whether to put a reassuring arm around him or not, I walked to the edge of the wall and looked out in the other direction to where the fighting was occurring as Hestia responsibly did the job that we had been assigned: watching out for the return of the werewolves.

The view was glorious, illuminated dimly by the lights which gently swung on their beams around the castle walls, and from where I stood there was every opportunity of seeing it. The fortification was on the very edge of a terrific precipice. Intrigued by the sheer depth of the chasm, I casually flicked a pebble from the wall and watched it tumble downwards. It seemed to travel one hundred metres without touching a single thing, glinting as it fell into what looked like a pit with no bottom. And as well, As far as the eye could reach there was a magnificent sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there was a gap. Here and there were silver threads where the rivers wound in deep gorges through the forests.

"That's it." Bill broke behind me, storming off at a jogging pace towards the steps down into the courtyard. "I've got to help. We can't just stand here!"

Before I could react, Hestia ran after him and authoritatively grabbed him by the arm. She was only a small witch, black-haired and bright pink of cheeks, but evidently she had authority. "We were given this task by Kingsley, and although I'm sure that we all agree that we should be down there fighting, if Kingsley but us here then here we shall stay."

Feeling like it should have been me, his wife, talking to him rather than someone who was essentially no more than a stranger, I spoke out myself. "Do not worry, Beel. Zhey will be okay, I am sure."

"They aren't _your _family, Fleur." He spat at me, but I was not offended. Clearly, my husband was just somebody who dearly loved his parents and siblings, something that I could relate to.

"They are, aren't they?" Hestia said, eyebrows lowered confusedly. "You two are married, right?"

An awkward silence descended over us at the mention of our disaster of a matrimony. Technically, Hestia was correct in that they were supposed to be my family, although not by blood, yet I certainly didn't consider them to be, just as I was sure that Bill didn't regard my parents and Gabrielle to be his.

Realisation dawned on Hestia like a tonne of bricks. "Oh."

That pretty much summed it up. I turned back to the picturesque view behind me, not particularly wanting this to turn into a marriage counselling session.

"Honestly though, Bill." I heard her say behind me, reassuring my 'husband'. "They will be fine. Remember that they took the Death Eaters by surprise. And anyway, you can always tell when someone dear has gone, you can always feel it. I promise that they'll all be okay."

From the corner of my eye, I noticed Bill pull the young auror into a tight hug. "Thank you," he told her quietly. "Thank you for saying that."

"Charming." We heard a sarcastic voice drawl from a few metres away at the end of the parapet. Immediately, we all drew our wands and pointed them threateningly towards the darkness, where the sound had come from; whoever it was didn't sound friendly.

"Show yourself!" Hestia shouted fiercely, the bubbly persona which she'd been exercising just seconds ago quickly turning into a wolf-like vehemence.

The sound of footsteps, and then she stepped out lazily into the light of the fortifications, not even bothering to draw her own wand. The witch was tall and shapely, possessing an enviable hourglass shaped figure and standing only a couple of inches shorter than my husband, a man who stood at least a head above me. Her hair was a river of shining, glittering gold , elegantly stretching down to far below her shoulders in delicate curls. Contrasting strikingly with her pale skin was a small layer of bright lipstick, the only make-up which she appeared to be wearing. There was not a flaw about her, perfection all the way across her body from the long, muscular legs to her sizeable and well rounded bust, finishing with that glowing hair. She had the look of a woman who was mind-bogglingly beautiful and knew it, a self-assurance clearly etched on her defined features. If I hadn't known better, I might have thought her to have Veela heritage like myself, but she didn't quite meet the true perfection that my race was known for. She was, however, by far and away the most beautiful human that I had ever known.

"If you haven't worked out who I am by now, then I have chosen the wrong side in working for you." She told us, basking in the admiration that she was getting from my husband and the envy that came from Hestia. Strangely, she pointedly ignored my gaze, unwilling to look at me; perhaps she was not used to looking at a woman even more dazzling than herself.

"You're the spy." Hestia glared at her; I sensed that she automatically didn't like this seemingly arrogant girl, something that I was pretty sure that I could agree with already.

She rolled her eyes at our ignorance, pulling her dress down her arm on one side to reveal the small, owl mark that Kingsley had told us to check for. "Feel free to publicise it across the _entire _castle."

The young auror ground her teeth together angrily, but ultimately ignored the jibe. "Grab my arm, then, and I'll take you back to headquarters."

""No." Came her swift, blunt reply.

The beautiful woman's arrogance was beginning to get on my nerves. "No?"

She continued, "There's something that you've got to help me with beforehand. I think that you might be interested; someone on your side has been locked in a cell for the last few months. If you come with me, we might be able to get him out."

"No can do." Hestia replied stubbornly, although I suspected her obstinance was perhaps partially to do with the desire to annoy the arrogant woman. " Orders are to get you back as soon as possible. It's for your own safety."

The woman smirked, turning to Bill. "What do you think? Don't you agree with me?"

She knew full well that from the moment the Bill had first laid his eyes on her, she'd had him wrapped around her finger; he was a sucker for a pretty face.

He replied, "Ummm, I guess that we could take a look?"

Silent from the sidelines, I rolled my eyes and Hestia gave him a similar look of exasperation. Before either of us could reply, however, the arrogant woman continued. "Look. If you two would feel morally fine about leaving a man, or woman, who's been tortured every night for the last four months in a cell, then go ahead and leave without me because I'm going to get whoever's in there out."

Grabbing the infatuated Bill's arm, she speedily took him off in the direction of her destination.

"Keep watch." I told Hestia, agreeing with the woman despite myself about the morals of leaving the prisoner to die. "If we're not back in five minutes then just get out of here."

Before Hestia could protest, I was running after my husband and the spy.

**Ron's POV**

The curse hit me with the power and force of a falling house, and immediately I was thrown backwards by the force. A low buzz in my disorientated ears, I grasped around desperately for my wand on the floor around me. The spark of consciousness was dripping from my body like water from a leaky pipe, slowly but surely, and vaguely I could hear the screams of my mother across the room. Dolohov, the bastard, had managed to get me like he'd killed Remus and mum's brother and sister.

Strangely, as my senses dulled and my body rested, I felt guilty for putting my family through the torment of seeing a sibling or son fall in battle; I knew all to well what that was like, and the emptiness which followed could not be compared to anything. Unconsciousness consumed me.

**Fleur's POV**

"I never asked your name," I told the unnamed spy, panting as she lead us down a spiral flight of stairs at a quick pace.

She turned briefly to look at me oddly, as if I'd just asked her if she wanted to eat a smelly boot. Was inquiring about her identity such a strange question where she came from? "Why do you want to know that?"

"Well, why not?" I laughed, although there was little humour in the situation.

She shrugged her shoulders as we reached the bottom of the stairs, moving forwards to fumble with a door handle, which when turned lead us into a dimly lit corridor lined with several windowless cell doors. It was a grim environment indeed.

"If you really want to know, I'm Daphne Greengrass." She introduced herself at long last. Waiting for her to ask about my name, I quickly realised that she had no interest in my identity whatsoever.

I told her anyway. "I am Fleur Delacour."

"Charmed, I'm sure." She said with a dry sarcasm, imitating the pleasantries of the higher classes.

Counting quietly as she lead us along the row of black doors, she stopped at number seven and stepped back.

"Here we are." She gestured towards the door. "There's just a slight problem: I suspect that this door is protected by all sorts of curses and magical enchantments. The Dark Lord has taken a particular interest in whoever the poor soul inside there is."

Bill raised his hand excitedly, sickeningly desperate to impress one of the ladies present. Certainly, that lady wasn't me. "I'm a curse breaker! I reckon that I can get through this in about fifteen to twenty minutes; I've had to break through ancient Egyptian magic before, and that stuff only gets stronger with age."

"You are going to 'ave to do better zhan zhat." I told him grimly, remembering that we did have a time limit. "We are supposed to leave in a few minutes."

Determined, Bill knelt down in front of the door and began to examine it. With intricate flourishes, he waved his wand over the threshold, all the time muttering complicated incantations.

Guessing that he was detecting any magical barriers, I stepped back to talk to the girl who called herself Daphne Greengrass.

"Do you 'ave any idea 'oo is in zhere?" I asked her, trying to create conversation more than anything else.

She hesitated, a rare look of uncertainty briefly floating over her face. "I don't know very much, but I do know that the Dark Lord himself and Draco Malfoy have been spending a lot of time down here with whoever's in there. I'm surprised that he or she is still going."

"It is a very, ah, what is the word... selfless thing zhat you are doing, though." I told her. "You could 'ave been 'ome and safe by now, but you decided to stay to try to rescue zhis person."

Daphne looked at me almost pityingly, a look of extreme condescension on her flawless face, as if she laughed at my idea of doing things for others. "You should know one thing about me, Delacour. Everything that I do is for myself. I'm not trying to rescue this person because I am worried for them, or because I think that they deserve better. I'm doing it because I think it will anger the Dark Lord greatly, judging by the amount of effort that he has obviously put into this."

I cut across her. "But the Dark Lord could be dead by now. That was the point of tonight's expedition."

She laughed, "Do you really think that any of you can beat him? I just pity anyone who went to fight him tonight, because they had no chance. Anyway, as I was saying. I simply want to annoy the Dark Lord; honestly, I couldn't care less about the well being of whoever is in there and I know that it is bad, but that is how I've been brought up to live. We Slytherins fight for ourselves, and only once we are safe do we help others."

"Why are you so keen on angering the Dark Lord?"

"Why are you so keen on asking so many questions?"

Touché. The conversation swiftly ended.

"I've done it!" Bill exclaimed a couple of minutes later. "It was actually remarkably simple."

Daphne responded in a typically dry manner. "Merlin, don't burden us with too many details."

He blushed, but continued. "Only one single curse was placed on this door, and it will not affect us. It is designed to only affect the person who is being kept in the cell, and get this: it's designed specifically to not kill! Whoever is in there, Vol- You-Know-Who wants them alive at all costs."

"So we can just... walk in?" Daphne checked, totally disbelieving that it could be so simple.

"Zhere is a zery big door in zhe way," I told her, with the express purpose of being annoying.

She glared daggers at me. "Very funny. What I mean is, can we just unlock it? You know, with alohomora?"

Bill shrugged his shoulders. "Only one way to find out, right?"

Silently casting the spell and twisting his wand in the corkscrew motion, Bill grinned as the door swung open welcomingly. "Too easy!"

Cautiously, we ghosted through the doorway. Was it really so simple? Surely there were other traps, snares so cunning that even Bill hadn't been able to detect them. This was Lord Voldemort's, the most powerful wizard on the planet, prisoner after all.

"Lumos." I muttered, the darkness so thick and intense that I could not see two feet ahead of me. Once again, I felt sorry for the poor soul who lived there. With no windows to the cell, they wouldn't have seen daylight since being thrown into confinement.

We heard him before we saw him, a painful croak sounding from the left of the doorway as my spell brightly illuminated the room, displaying what was no more than a damp, mouldy, cold, even blood splattered room the size of a mere broom closet.

The prisoner desperately covered his face with his hands, and quickly I realised my mistake.

"Please." He croaked, his words barely discernible. "Light."

Suddenly, realisation dawned on me. I recognised this boy, even with his hands obscuring his face. That long, scruffy and very greasy raven black hair – I'd seen it before. I shut the light off, now sure that I knew the identity of this mysterious prisoner, and I could barely believe it. He wasn't supposed to be alive.

"Mon Dieu," I whispered as I knelt down to clutch his twig-like limbs, as fragile as a new born baby's. "'Arry?"

**Wow. **

**That took a long time. I've absolutely worked my little socks off to write this, so I literally can't be bothered to write any author's notes. God, that took a lot out of me.**

**Just a couple of things, though. Firstly, that's probably the longest chapter that I'll ever write. As you know, I'm not someone who very often asks for reviews, but if you are ever going to leave a review then now would be the time to do it, because it would be just a small way of showing that you understand how much effort this took on my part.**

**Secondly, I'd say that you should except another chapter on Sunday. I'm going to give myself a day off to recover from this, so Sunday's probably realistic.**

**I'd love to break my all time reviews record (for both of my stories) with this monster of a chapter, so if I can get more than about thirty then I would be literally the happiest guy on the planet.**

**Always a pleasure,**

**Charlie.**

**PS: Well done to those of you who guessed correctly about the spy, there were a fair few of you. Good job.**

**Phewhp. I need to sleep.**


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

**I have to start this chapter on a rather unpleasant note, unfortunately, because I have to admit to being a little disappointed with the rather unimpressive turnout in terms of reviewers for the last chapter. Considering that I had made a rare appeal for them at the end of the last chapter, something that I rarely do, I had hoped for more, rather than fewer than usual, because it was somewhat of a milestone chapter. I needed to know what you thought. Sorry to have to start the chapter on such a bad note, and especially sorry for those loyal people who did take the time to review. You know who you are, and I hope that you know by now how incredibly grateful I am to you. I'm not going to try to force anyone to write me even just a quick comment, but considering I worked my socks off to get you that 12 page chapter out on time, I had hoped for a better response.**

**That being said, I still hope that you enjoy this chapter and apologies again to those of you who did take the time.**

**Harry's POV**

I groaned. The light, it was unbearable; my eyes had become accustomed and adapted to blackness, perhaps only functional in the pure darkness that had been my life for the last weeks... months... years? I didn't even know. It had been such a long time since I had experienced any brightness that I'd almost forgotten that such a thing even existed, and my eyes couldn't stand the blinding blare. Covering my face with my hands, I groaned at the intruders to cut the source of the light. What was this? Another of Malfoy's cruel torture methods?

"Mon Dieu." I heard a female voice, a familiar one, from barely a yard away. "'Arry?"

My head began to spin. This had to be a hallucination, a dream, or perhaps Malfoy's cruel way of getting my hopes up. When had been the last time that I'd heard the voice of a female? When had been the last time that I'd seen the glare of light? When was the last time that somebody had stepped into my cell without the intention of brutally harming me?

The light went off, thankfully, but I kept my hands over my eyes. Still, I hadn't managed to convince myself that this was actually happening. Nobody knew that I was there, I was dead to the world. Could it really be possible that somebody had come to save me?

The soft skin of the intruder's long digits connected blissfully with my left arm, lightly gripping my limb as if examining it. Whoever was touching me, their fingers were a far cry from the calloused sticks of bark that Voldemort and Malfoy had beaten me with. It was like being touched by silk.

"'E is so thin!" The same familiar voice said with a tone of actual concern that I wasn't used to hearing. "Zhe poor boy!"

Triumphantly, my brain whirred into action and processed the fact that the accent was French but still, I couldn't work out who it belonged to. My memory was frustratingly bare; no matter how much I tried to squeeze out any success, I simply could not recall anyone with that accent.

Another voice rang out from the darkness, female again, this one far less emotional and readable. It was cold and flat but not unfriendly. Again, I couldn't work out who she was, though. Internally, I cursed Malfoy for his daily destructive rampages through my mind; surely that was the reason that I couldn't recognise these voices.

"We need to get out of here, Delacour." The second female said from a short distance away in the darkness, "if we're not careful, the wards will close before we can escape. I've sent Bill up to check on that auror friend of yours, so he'll make his own way back."

Delacour? Delacour? The name... it was familiar. I had definitely heard it before, surely the name of someone who I had known before this incident. Somehow, though, any memories of her seemed just out of reach and still, I could not recall anything about her. It was the most infuriating thing.

"Yes." Came the silken French voice of 'Delcour'. "'Elp me pull 'im up. If you two grab onto my arms then I shall take you to zhe Burrow. Zhe rest of zhe Order should be zhere."

The unidentified girl replied, "I'm not coming with you, Delacour. Somehow, I don't feel that your friends at the Order will be very accepting of someone like me."

Nevertheless, light footsteps approached and I felt another hand take me by my other arm. This woman's fingers were almost as soft as the other girl's, with long, dancing fingers. Now at least partially convinced that this could actually be reality, I was forced onto my shaking legs by my two rescuers. Immediately, my knees buckled below me like old trees in a storm and I tumbled unceremoniously back down, caught half way by the surprisingly strong arms of my two female liberators. It had been such a long time, months, since my legs had taken the full weight of my body and their muscles had wasted away like rotting fruit; I wasn't even sure that they worked any more.

Part of me wanted to scream out and tell these two heroic women to get out of there whilst they still could; from what I'd heard through the unbearable buzzing in my ears, it sounded as if there was somewhat of a time limit on this. I couldn't bring myself to do it, though. Any opportunity to escape from this hell hole had to be snatched, however uncharacteristically selfish I would have to be.

"Of course you will be accepted!" 'Delacour' panted to her accomplice as they slowly restored my balance, resting my weight on their two frames. "You 'ave saved 'Arry Potter! Do you know what 'e means to zhem?"

A sudden feeling of joy flowed through my body like running water down a shallow stream. This girl, one of my saviours, seemed to be implying that I had friends back where she was taking me, people who cared about me! It just infuriated me that I couldn't remember them, that no single image of any of these people who I apparently meant so much to could be conjured up in my broken mind. Finally, I opened my eyes in the hope of catching a glimpse of my two helpers but in the fog thick darkness, but I could only see two shining heads of hair, one a golden blonde and one a Moon silver.

As no reply came, 'Delacour' continued, "Daphne, I beg you to think again!"

A sigh followed from the second woman, who 'Delacour' had called Daphne, before some more dialogue.

"Fleur." Daphne said to the other woman, seemingly named 'Fleur Delacour', in the friendliest tone that I'd heard from her. "You don't see them like I do, the Weasleys. You'll see what I mean at some point, I'm sure. They are the most closed-minded family that I have ever come across and I can guarantee that they would never, ever accept me. To them, all Slytherins are the enemy and they cannot believe otherwise. I doubt that they've even accepted you and you're part of their family now, although judging by your refusal to call yourself 'Fleur Weasley', I assume that it's not a happy coupling."

It appeared that I was forgotten between them as Daphne went off on her torrent of complaints about this family, the Weasleys (that name definitely rang a bell) and her logical conclusion on Fleur Delacour's marriage, which was apparently an unhappy one. Daphne seemed like a very intelligent woman.

"My marriage with Beel is just fine, zhank you very much!" Fleur told her fellow woman rather indignantly, although there was little weight behind her words; I guessed that Daphne had been totally correct about Fleur's situation.

Daphne replied with a snort, "Whatever. You think Harry will be stable enough to apparate?"

"Mon Dieu!" Fleur replied with a soft cry, "How 'ad I forgotten zhat I was supposed to be getting 'im out of 'ere? I don't see any ozzer choice zhan apparition. Whatever zhe results, I'm sure zhat zhey will be better zhan leaving 'im here for any longer."

Daphne nodded, laughing with only a hint of humour. "That's certainly one way of looking at it."

After making sure that I was securely balanced on Fleur's frame, she stepped away from us. For the briefest of moments, I caught a glimpse of her features as a tiny crack of light from the corridor outside flew over her face. Taking my chance, I stored away anything that I could remember about her looks from this short opportunity; I was determined to remember something about the taller of my saviours, whether it would be her long, golden waterfall of hair or her piercing eyes of the lightest blue, I didn't much care.

"Stay in touch, yeah?" The tall woman asked the French one, showing the first signs of what was perhaps more of a friendly relationship than I had assumed from the interactions between them that I had seen up to that point.

"Of course." Fleur Delacour nodded beside me, making the silvery hair that adorned her head shake a little.

Then, there was an indescribable feeling of terrible contortions. Everything went black, even darker than the shadowy cell; I was squeezed from all directions as if under a steam roller; I was totally asphyxiated, there was a straight jacket tightening around my chest; my eyeballs were being forced back into my skull; my ear-drums were being pushed deeper into my head. The feeling was unbearable, as if my body was rebelling and self destructing; I tried to let go of the French girl beside me, but she determinedly kept hold of me with an iron grip. I let out an animalistic cry and next to me, Fleur's eyes softened ever so slightly.

After a single second that had felt like an agonising hour, we materialised with a resonating crack in a field of long, unkempt grass. Unable to control myself, I swayed and collapsed to the ground, a superhuman effort required to simply not be sick. I'd escaped, left that horrible cell at long last. At that moment, there was nothing that I dreaded more than returning.

Fleur, who had easily kept a graceful balance to make an elegant landing, knelt down beside me and concernedly stared into my eyes.

"Are you okay, 'Arry?" She asked me worriedly, scanning over me for any signs of damage or splinching. "It is going to be fine, we are gone. I can only imagine what you 'ad to go through in zhere, but I promise that you will never 'ave to return zhere, okay? Do you hear me, 'Arry? You'll never 'ave to go through zhat again."

Breathing heavily, I nodded in reply, words unable to formulate in my desert dry mouth. Her words were reassuring and touching; such care had become alien to me.

With a heavy sigh, she pulled me up and took my less than substantial weight on her frame once again, holding my arm round her shoulder as we hobbled through the field towards a vaguely recognisable house.

There was a small yard at the front of the dwelling, with a garage and a coop that housed the resident chickens. A sign in the ground read "The Burrow" by the main entrance. The house itself looked like a highly unstable structure, leaning like the Tower of Pisa as if one (or five) too many stories had been built. Around me, in the long grass, I could see tiny, grumpy looking creatures hop around, mumbling and grumbling about all of the commotion that evening.  
"Get ready, 'Arry." Fleur told me as we approached the drive, looking like two injured soldiers as we leaned on each other in our slow shuffle. "You are about to get a lot of attention."  
Through the window, I could see exactly the kind of bustling commotion that I sought to avoid. A porky ginger-haired woman running around barking orders at people, people collapsed in heaps on the furniture, no space to breathe or think.

"Fle." I croaked, forcing my best imitation of her voice from the back of my desert dry throat. "No. Please."  
It was all that I could manage; hopefully it would be enough.  
She looked at me concernedly. "What? Do you not want to go in zhere, 'Arry? Why not?"  
I shook my head, but that was all that I could manage. Just that simple action was an Atlas-like effort, like lifting a the entire weight of the sky; I desperately needed to collapse and rest.  
Fleur looked at me, and then the Burrow. Then back at me, and at the Burrow again. An expression of decisiveness blossomed on the soft skin of her face, perhaps an understanding of why I did not want to visit that house.  
"D'accord." She said to herself more than to me. "We will go back to my 'ouse."

She gripped my arm tightly once more and I closed my eyes, ready for the suffocation of her magical transportation. Once more, my body squeezed together into the tightest of compact masses and we were on our way.

**Hermione's POV**

The evening had been, for the most part, a success. The plan had worked; the Death Eaters had indeed been taken by surprise, the pathetically few of them out on guard duty that night a testament to how safe they felt behind the 'unbreakable' wards that their lord had set up. As a result of their lackadaisical and self assured defence efforts, or lack of defence efforts, more than one or two of them were lying unconscious at Grimmauld Place, carefully watched over by Kingsley and his aurors. Others had escaped, fled through the chaos, whilst a couple had even died, mostly due to the wild killing curses from the wands of their own colleagues. Their arrogance, as I had always predicted, had been their downfall. The most satisfying result of our attack was undoubtedly a certain blonde-haired, pale snot who had always sought to make the lives of myself and my friends hell.

Not everything, however, had gone perfectly. The biggest failure? Fate had spat on us again, and it seemed that Voldemort had chosen that particular night to go on a reconnaissance mission and therefore the greatest aim of the night had, unfortunately, not been fulfilled. Although I hated myself for it, part of me breathed a sigh of relief at his absence; if he had been there, for all I knew we wouldn't have all escaped with only minor injuries and thankfully no fatalities, as far as I was aware.

"Where's Bill?" Molly fretted nervously, her feet tapping as she checked her watch for the millionth time that minute. "He should have been back five minutes ago!"

Although I recognised her concern, Bill's team's lateness was certainly a serious worry, I felt myself slightly resenting the comparative lack of interest that she was displaying towards Fleur and Hestia, both of whom were in just as much danger as her son. It was clear to me that Bill and Fleur's marriage was a shambles, a war time impulse, and for as long as I'd known about it, I'd always naturally blamed the latter. She had always seemed to me a rather self obsessed witch who would always find a way to get on your nerves, whereas Bill had never appeared to me as anything other than, well, lovely. But I was coming to believe more and more that it was neither of their faults; Molly was the one who had never allowed them to bond, always a disapproving watcher. This incident was just more evidence that she valued Fleur little.

With everyone patched up and beginning to make their ways back home after a good night's work, with many pats on the back and high fives exchanged, she was running out of things to keep her mind occupied with. Ginny, who had fought like a little tiger, George, Charlie, Percy and Arthur reassured her with plastic smiles, knowing of Mrs Weasley's tendency to blow matters way out of proportion, but I knew that they all worried just as much as her. Fred's passing had destroyed them, dampened the spirits of the ever-cheerful family; none of them were game to losing another family member to this blasted war. Perhaps it was better that Ron was still unconscious, free from the ache in the heart of a missing sibling.

"I'm sure he's fine, dear." Arthur reassured the rest of his dear family optimistically. "He had the safest job of everyone!"

I chipped in, desperate to wipe the grimaces from the faces of my favourite wizarding family. "He could be back at Shell Cottage? I don't mind going to check."

From the slightly brighter expressions on their faces, I guessed that my objective had been fulfilled; I doubted that Bill had actually gone against the express orders to return straight to the Burrow, but hopefully by the time I returned, he'd be back. Either way, I didn't want to be back at the Weasley dwelling at the time when Kingsley returned; I had it on good authority that he was absolutely livid that Voldemort had avoided us, ruined months of planning.

Arthur looked at me gratefully. "Good idea, Hermione. I'm sure that that's all it is, dear."

Spreading a few more reassuring words about Bill's certain safety, I walked from the Burrow and focused clearly on the rolling waves of the Shell Cottage beach, the salty shells which lined the walls, the pale sand where a free elf had been buried by my former best friend's hand.

The familiar gut wrenching sensation, almost second nature to me by now, and there I was: back at the small cottage that I'd only just become accustomed to calling my home. I let myself in and stumbled upstairs, checking for any signs of life in the solitary building. Searching briefly through most of the rooms, I saw that the house appeared empty. I grabbed a few supplies from my bedroom and stuck them into my tiny handbag, or my portable library as Ron called it, knowing that I could potentially have to stay overnight at the Burrow, depending on my boyfriend's mobility and his mother's over protectiveness.

Leaving my room, I heard a noise from the master bedroom. Strangely, my first reaction was to whip my wand out and prepare for an attacker; paranoia was one of the unfortunate side effects of a life of fighting. I tip-toed to the door, pressing my ear against the wood as I had done on the night when I'd overheard the argument between Bill and Fleur.

"You are going to be fine, okay?" I heard the soft French voice whisper, followed by the noise of an urgent movement. "I promise zhat I will sort you out." 

Relieved, I put my wand away. It was Fleur, and it sounded as if Bill was indeed here, although apparently injured if she was having to reassure him that he was going to be okay. Not feeling comfortable embroiling myself in their affairs, I retreated backwards with the intention of making my way back to the Burrow. My left foot dropped onto a slightly lifted floorboard. There came a long, drawn out squeak, followed by silence. Fleur stopped whispering; she had heard. Suddenly, I was back in the heat of battle with a tough decision to make. Continue my retreat with the hope of escaping before she saw that it had been me eavesdropping, but risk only making the situation worse for myself, or stand my ground and pretend that I hadn't been doing anything abnormal.

"'oo goes zhere?" She called from the master bedroom, probably taking her wand out. "Beel?"

My brain drawing a rare blank, I made no reply and she walked cautiously to the door. Her footsteps were slow and gingerly. Slowly, the door pushed open and she pressed herself against the wall to the left of the doorway as she prepared for someone who wanted to kill her. I couldn't blame her for her suspicions; the whole situation must have appeared very unusual.

She peeked through the doorway, sighing in relief as she saw me. "'Ermione. You scared zhe life out of me."

"Sorry," I blushed, embarrassed at my awkwardness. "I didn't want to intrude on you and Bill."

There was a silence as she seemed to consider how to reply. "Eet is not Beel in zhere, 'Ermione." She told me seriously, her eyes begging for me to understand that she had something important to say. "I am not sure zhat you will want to see..."

Whether I wanted to or not, there was no escape by that point. My imagination was already filling in the blanks, imagining any and every possible situation that could have caused her slightly odd reaction. If she wasn't looking after Bill, who was in there? There was simply no way that I could walk away at that point; I simply had to know, my brain had to be satisfied.

She evidently saw my determination because nervously, she beckoned for me to follow her. Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of drama overtook me. Who was behind that door? What had caused her mysteriousness?

The door held open for me, I tentatively peeked through. My eyes were drawn to the bed. A gasp drew from my throat and I was running, sprinting away from the truth. It was cowardly, I knew, but I could not bear to take another look. The plain wallpaper of the corridors a blur in my peripheral vision, I fled from what I had just seen, ignoring everything around me but the floor ahead of me. Fleur's shouts didn't register in my ears; I needed to think. I had always been able to rely on my mind; it betraying me was unthinkable. But surely, it just couldn't be, that I had just seen my dead best friend, the one who had willingly perished at Voldemort's hand to give us a fighting chance in this bitter war. Harry Potter was dead. So why was he lying, thinner than a dying tree in Winter, in Fleur's bed?

**Sorry that it has taken me such a long time to write this, especially because it's not even particularly good. Ideas, motivation and time were all a problem for this chapter; I wrote it out about five times before this version and none of them satisfied me. It doesn't help that I am now busy on one of my only free days now, because I'm doing a few hours of voluntary work for a charity called Headways on Wednesdays. That's why I had to post this rather unsatisfactory chapter today; I knew that I wouldn't be able to work on it tomorrow.**

**I won't ask for reviews this chapter, don't want to make a habit of it. All I can do is send a massive, mega, super thanks to those of you who have done and got me over the 100 review milestone. Yay! Next stop is, hopefully, 200 (eventually). **

**See you next time.**

**Charlie.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**Sorry about the comparatively poor standard of the last chapter; I'll try to do better this time around. Thanks to everyone who were nice enough to leave their reviews, words cannot express my gratitude :).**

**Hermione's POV**

Shell Cottage's beach was hardly the definition of a sandy paradise, a far cry from the hot, sandy and positively angelic coastlines described in the clichés. The wind was often an icy breath, chilly rather than the refreshing, warm breezes that people generally associated with beaches. We were on the British coastline, meaning that we were about as likely to see sunshine as we were to see a Loch Ness monster bathing in the waters. The sand was pale and coarse, the water bone-chilling and boringly calm, the dunes too steep for comfortable sitting. That didn't mean that it wasn't a pretty scene, a treat for the eyes; indeed, I was grateful to wake up to the view every single morning.

Somehow, it was a particularly calming environment, the perfect place for deep reflection and refuge from other human beings; somehow, the beach wasn't a primary visitor hotspot, even in a relatively secluded and limited place, although calm and pretty, like Tinworth. Maybe the uncomfortable sensation of sand rising from the floor to maliciously slap me in the face provided motivation to put my mind on other things, maybe it was the sound of waves crashing onto the shore, cheekily creeping closer to my feet with every wave, but whatever the reason, I could think much more clearly down on the shore.

Harry Potter was alive. Quickly, I had decided that this was surely the truth. My eyes never deceived me, my brain never let me down; if I had seen him, which I had, it had been him. What was I to do? What was I to think? What was I to go back and tell the rest of the Weasleys? There were too many decisions, too much to contemplate. Even my mind, the intelligence that consistently had scored me more than one hundred percent on my Arithmancy exams, was struggling to cope; I pitied Ron's brazil nut of a brain, knowing that it would not be able to register all of this information when the time, inevitably, would come. Part of me was desperately appealing to the brave side of me that I had to go back in there and face him, stare him right in the face and come to terms with the fact that my best friend was, in fact, alive. He needed my help; the poor man looked thinner than he had done on the first day that I'd ever met him, back on the Express, and had a skin coloured a sickly pale. His posture had been limp and weak, the position of a man on the edge of giving up.

Maybe, however, that was the reason that I could not force myself back in there. How could I stroll back into that bedroom and look at him in such a state? It was my fault... my doing that he had suffered so much. If only I had gone with my instincts and stuck by him on that fateful evening at Hogwarts; I could have stopped him from going out to his greatest enemy. How was I going to stare him in the eyes as he lay there, perhaps even dying in front of me?

It was terrible, but part of me selfishly wished that he had not returned. I had been so close, agonisingly near, to putting him behind me, moving on and leaving him a sanctuary in only my heart, not my mind as well. Now he had come back into my life, my insecurities would only continue to rise and my guilt would rocket.

There was only one solution if I wanted to live a life without that perpetual guilt; I had to overcome my fears and face him. Alone. For all I knew, judging by how he'd looked back in that bedroom, it could have been my last chance.

**Fleur's POV**

There was no time to run after Hermione. The young man on the double bed needed urgent attention; his pulse was a slow, funeral beat and his sickly skin was paler than bone. It would, of course, have been easier if he had let me take him to the Burrow. Mrs Weasley undoubtedly had more medical experience than me, as well as more contacts and now I found myself in the unfamiliar position of potentially having another person's life in my hands. From what I heard, this had been something that the very man in front of me had dealt with several times over his short life so far, and I couldn't help but marvel at how he had coped. The pressure was such a burden on my shoulders already.

Slowly, I peeled the ragged remains of the shirt that Harry wore from his torso, grimacing at the thin layer of sweat which stuck to the thin fabric. There had been a very good reason that I hadn't gone into medical sciences... a number of good reasons in fact.

His chest bore a network of angry looking scars, a testament to the violent life that he had been forced to live. Each one seemed to tell its own little story, a sickening tale of the hardships that this undeserving hero had suffered through. I didn't know what to think. The scars were all healed up, sealed and not bleeding or looking infected, yet there were just so many of them that it was difficult to imagine him not being in pain. A square inch of unblemished skin was a relief, a rarity on his slashed and cut body surface. How was I to know whether they were affecting him or not?

"Where does it 'urt, 'Arry?" I asked stupidly; it probably hurt everywhere!

Harry, who was in some sort of transitional state between unconsciousness and consciousness, let out a short grunt and in a movement which looked like it took a great deal of effort, waved his hand as if to gesture across his body.

Without wanting to blow my own trumpet, I knew that I did have a good proficiency for healing spells. They came easily to me, and I found it relatively easy to wave my wand and seal up and disinfect normal wounds. But what I could do in this situation left me with only blanks; the wounds had already been closed up, but they seemed to still hurt and affect him. These were cursed slashes, caused by dark magic that I had always done my bets to avoid and unfortunately, I had to admit that they were way out of my league.

The cuts were only the first problem. There was also his scary lack of muscle and fat, both having wasted away in what must have been long, tedious and excruciatingly painful hours in captivity. His eyes were unfocused and empty, a certain spark of animation seeming to be missing. The mental problems that he was surely suffering from, well... I wouldn't even know where to start with those. He looked to me, as much as I hated to admit it, a lost cause; there was no evidence that he was trying to stay alive and healthy, as it death was not something that bothered him at all. That was definitely not the right state of mind to be in.

"'Arry. I 'ave no choice, I will 'ave to take you to zhe Burrow. Mrs Weasley is more, uh, qualified to 'elp you zhan me." I told him apologetically, internally cursing myself for ever bringing him back to the cottage in the first place. Such a waste of time could prove costly.

"Wait. I'll have a look at him."

Hermione had returned to conquer her fears; never had I been quite so relieved to hear the young witch's voice. With our combined intellects, we could just manage to turn this uphill battle in our favour. With time against us, however, I had to convey all of this information to the younger woman with just a flashing smile.

"Come and 'ave a look." I beckoned her over, gesturing to the crimson slashes over his chest. To her credit, Hermione did not blanch or wretch as she could have done; she was a battle hardened witch.

Shyly, she gently fingered one of the worst scars. "These wounds reek of dark magic."

"Yes, I agree zhat zhey are cursed. I think zhat zhey 'ave been closed up but zhey still 'urt, if you know what I mean?" I confirmed her fears.

She replied, "What would be the point of that, though? Why wouldn't a torturer just leave them to bleed if the pain would be the same? It just doesn't seem logical... unless..."

Clearly, she had just enjoyed a light bulb moment, the brilliant chemistry of two and two coming together. I, however, was left in the dark. Was there something that she knew that I didn't?

Seeing my blank expression, she spoke a little condescendingly, as if speaking to a child. "The torturer wanted to keep him alive!"

"Yes, I figured zhat out, but why would zhey do zhat? We know zhat You-Know-Who is arrogant, but 'e would have wanted to finish zhis once and for all, would he not?"

Hermione's face showed a conflict; she obviously knew the answer and wanted to show that off, but something was restraining her from saying what it was.

"Not," she told me as vaguely as possible, thus proving that she had the answer whilst still staying secretive, "if he needed Harry for something."

Not wanting to beg for Hermione to reveal her secrets, I did not press her and we continued our work in silence. Rolling the now unconscious Harry onto his back, I was relieved to see an expanse of mostly unaffected skin; at least he wasn't totally covered in scars.

Suddenly, Hermione exploded. "Well? Aren't you going to ask me about what You-Know-Who might have needed him for?"

"It know already." I said, purely to annoy her.

She glared at me sceptically. "Do you now? Why do you think that he needed Harry?"

"Umm... because... 'Arry being alive makes 'im stronger, in a way." I improvised.

Judging by the surprised expression on her face, I had obviously come pretty close. We went back to work but despite by clever ploy, still I hadn't managed to wheedle any information from her; whatever this was, it was obviously a massive secret.

Staring into the barren abyss of his eyes, I knew that our problem was just as much a psychological one as a physical one; it was clear that however brilliant our combined intellects were, we just didn't have the specialised knowledge needed to cure Harry.

"I think zhat we will 'ave to inform zhe Order now." I told Hermione, "'e did not want to go to zhem for some reason but I do not see any ozzer option."

Hermione looked at me, then at Harry, and then back at me again. "If he did not want to see them, then it would probably be wise to respect his wishes. I doubt that he didn't have a reason for saying so. If you have an owl then I can get a message to the healer at Hogwarts, Madam Pomfrey; she knows her stuff."

"You realise zhat we will 'ave to tell zhem eventually, you know." I said slowly. "We cannot keep zhis a secret."

"Of course." Hermione agreed. "We'll tell them when the time is right and when Harry is ready; he is more likely to get better if we respect his wishes."

And so, after agreeing that Harry should have the final say in when he wanted to reunite with the rest of his old friends, the younger witch went to find Henri, my beautiful grey owl. A more graceful creature would not be found in the entire of Europe; Henri had been a gift, and an expensive one, for my seventeenth birthday. Yes, perhaps I had been a little spoilt as a child.

Sitting down on the bed, I gazed at the young chosen one's face. "What are you and 'Ermione 'iding, I wonder?"

**Bellatrix's POV**

My Lord's normally calm demeanour slowly changed and his face contorted in an all - consuming anger; thin nostrils flaring, his snake eyes flashed and closed into slits, his mouth quivering, he looked like a volcano ready to erupt. We had failed him, betrayed his trust; the deepest shame ached deep within my body. I would take on the Order one-by-one to get his pet back if that was what it would take for him to forgive me.

His hands clenched into fists and he crouched forward in the cell, daring any of us to reiterate once more the words that had torn him from his usual calmness. Beside me, the other remaining Death Eaters looked at each other nervously; nobody wanted to get in the way of one of his rages, all of them remembering the aftermath of the Gringotts incident. The cowards. I would take whatever punishment my Lord threw at me because I deserved it. I had let him down.

"They took us by surprise, my Lord." Lucius tried to explain. "The wards-"

Interrupting the stuttering coward, my Lord let go with a furious spell. It hit him like a right uppercut to the head and sent him flying from one side of the room to the other at what seemed like the speed of light. His body made contact with the opposite wall and he slid to the floor like a sack of potatoes. The powerful incantation had been cast without a single word nor a flourish of his wand; we were quickly reminded of his power. Nobody whispered a word.

In the silence, he turned back to stare at the emptiness of the dark cell. The dead and captured Death Eaters were obviously of secondary importance to the fact that the Potter boy had gone; they were replaceable, after all. When he turned around, his composure had reattained its staple equanimity and I knew that his great, brilliant, calculating mind had formulated a plan. Hopefully, it involved the Potter boy's blood; he would pay for making us look like fools.

"I am correct in thinking that you captured an auror, am I not, Bellatrix?" He asked me, already knowing the answer.

I stepped forwards and bowed down, relishing any opportunity to redeem myself in his eyes. "Yes, my Lord. Hestia Jones. She was alone on guard duty."

My Lord smiled with a delicious maliciousness. "Good. Bring her to me; she will tell us where the boy can be found."

I smiled; retribution had begun..

**Bill's POV**

The burden of guilt was heavy on my shoulders. Hestia was gone, captured by the enemy which we had been supposed to fight against by her side. Only her wand, snapped unceremoniously in two, had remained where we had left her. If only I hadn't followed the two prettier women down into those dungeons, a mission which I didn't even know the outcome of yet. If only I had stayed and fought with her, listened to the orders which I had been expressly given. I had followed by lust rather than my head and as a result of my actions, a young, pretty, promising young auror was now another casualty of this terrible war, or even worse a prisoner of those evil souls. It was a sorry situation, I knew, to be having to hope that she was dead rather than a prisoner; the horrors that could be inflicted upon her in that ugly black castle were unimaginable to a person like me.

With a bowed head, I trudged up the drive to the Burrow. No matter what news I heard upon entering that room, nothing would make me feel better.

Pushing open the door, immediately I was hit with the force of a charging elephant. A sobbing elephant. Mentally, I made a note to stop comparing my mother to an elephant.

"What took you so long?" Mum asked, rather sternly for someone who was sobbing floods. "We thought that something had happened, you naughty boy!"

I ignored her question. "Hestia's been captured."

Silence settled uncomfortably over the room and my hopes for the young woman to step out and laugh "I'm not dead!" quickly dissipated.

"I suppose that it was too much to hope for that we could go through an entire night without a single loss." Dad said grimly, bowing his head in respect. "She died for a good cause and history will remember her for it, as Kingsley said."

I glared at him. "I said that she's been captured, not killed."

Dad nodded but didn't speak; it was clear that he feared the worst.

Looking around the room, I noticed the absence of my wife. "Where's Fleur?"

My family looked at each other, each of them shrugging their shoulders in turn as they sat in the warmth of our sitting room's permanently blazing fire. Blank face after blank face, I wondered if they had even noticed her absence.

"How could you not notice that she's not here!" I exclaimed.

George raised his arms defensively, sitting with Angelina's arm around him. "We never see her, mate! I mean, when does she ever come to the Order meetings? We just kind of go with it by now."

"I'm sure she's fine!" Mum reassured me with a surprising lack of concern for the person who was supposed to be her daughter-in-law. "Come and sit down, tell us about what happened that you got back so late."

Though my mother's apparent lack of affection for my wife shocked me, I simply did not have the energy to argue with her about it and I followed her to the comforting fire, sinking down into one of the battered armchairs with an almighty sigh. George was right; Fleur didn't like to spend time with them and it was therefore hardly inconceivable that she would head back to the cottage.

"Where's Ron?" I asked, for the first time noticing that he wasn't there. "And Hermione?"

"Ron was injured, Hermione went off looking for _you_." Percy replied a little snidely from the corner, as if berating me for making the young woman search.

George snorted. "Injured? The idiot only got hit by a stunner, nothing more. He'll blow it outta proportion of course."

I found myself laughing at my brother's humorous lack of sympathy for Ron; he hadn't made a whole lot of jokes since Fred had died, the previously eternal humour in his life subdued by the death of somebody closer to him than I could even comprehend, and this made hearing the occasional one all the more funny.

"George!" Mum berated him, making the situation only more comical, "Show a little more sympathy for your brother! It could have been very serious."

"What?" George protested, "I'm just saying, you don't see anyone else pass out for an hour after being hit by a mediocre stunner. And he will come down and hail himself as a war hero, don't even try to deny it."

Hestia, Fleur, Hermione, Voldemort; all were forgotten as we enjoyed the evening by the hearth.

**Struggled a little with this chapter because not only did I have no ideas, I also had no time. A few of you will notice that you didn't get replies to your reviews and for that I am eternally apologetic. I have always maintained my desire to reply to every single one of your reviews as a way of showing my gratitude for the time that you invest in this story but unfortunately, it just wasn't possible this time around. I always do my best to do as many as possible but this time, I had to miss out a few because it was a basic choice between spending my free time on the actual chapter or on the reviews, and I figured that the former would be appropriate. So yeah, sorry. Those of you who didn't get a reply, it was nothing personal and it definitely doesn't mean that I am any less grateful for your time and efforts. Thank you so much for all of that. **

**I hope that you enjoyed this chapter, not a great deal happened but I feel that I covered a few important points. **

**Thank you so much for reading this, words cannot describe how much it means to me.**

**Charlie.**


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